Agreed. I watched my driving closely all of 2013, and after I could show that a sub 100 mile range just wasn't a problem 99% of the time I bought an EV. I've had it for three months and it's not once been a problem, or even close to a problem. I keep the gaso-powered cars (of which I have many, because I'm a gearhead) fueled up and ready to go, and maybe a couple times a month they've been called into action for something other than a track day, but mostly they just sits there. My monthly fuel bill went from $160 to $26 and I lost nothing in the deal. My house is due for a new roof in the next couple years, and I fully intend on integrating solar power into that work. I love ICEs and the cars they power, but for the daily, I am 100% satisfied with an EV.
Even if battery technology stagnates and people still need to have a backup ICE or rent an ICE for those longer trips I think that's major progress. Perhaps over time those longer trips will be handled with flight, trains, or some other form of mass transit. The idea that getting around in the future might consist of EVs and HSR makes me happy inside. Let's do it.
Indeed. That's what Doom did. Doom made that suggestion, albeit indirectly. Doom suggested Quake and Quake suggested Half Life.
Myst was a genre more or less to itself, a genre aimed at non-computer game players. A low-stress "experience" that included no real failure, and no rules for success. If you clicked enough, you'd eventually get it. I think more aptly, Myth's legacy is Bejewelled. Or Diablo.:*)
I worked at a software store when Myst came out, and we sold MOUNTAINS of it. That at the 7th Guest (and Encarta, LOL) were the go-tos when people added a CD-ROM to their system and wanted something to do with it. But the feedback was universal - after a couple hours in Myst and the visual excitement wore off, it turned out there wasn't much game. It wasn't much more than a graphic Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Doom came out shortly later, and everyone forgot entirely about Myst. We sold mountains of Doom, and then we sold mountains of those *terrible* compilation CDs that had bazillions of maps downloaded off the internet. And then Doom2, and then more add-on maps (and not long after we started selling NICs and 10Base2 terminators;). Being able to go anywhere and engage anything was what Myst didn't do, a step we had *expected* Riven to take... but it didn't.
Under a Killing Moon was also a big seller - and there were other games in the vein, too. All very interesting to play, but like the LucasFilm-style games they got murdered by FPSs and RTSs. I never quite understood why - Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island were great games with broad appeal. Strange they didn't survive longer.
heck.. what I want the answer to is what the fuck happened to space combat, and the X-Wing & Wing Commander promises of good games!
Absolutely. They only thing they can with aircraft in California is spot cars that appear to be moving faster than other cars. In order to get "clocked," a patrol car needs to pace or radar the suspect vehicle.
(Of course, this is a technicality - who is the civilian to argue with about whether the aircraft or the patrol car determined his/her speed?)
Spielberg is just mad because nobody would give him money for the movie he wanted to make. Boohoo. Hey Spielberg, if you're so sure Hollywood is stupid and you've got the true formula for Hollywood success, how about you fund it with your billions instead of theirs?
This had been my approach as well, and I have had mixed results. My telemarketing calls have included the Cardholder Services scam, the "you may have a judgment" scam, the car warranty scam, and the free cruise scam. My initial approach was to get into the operator queue and leave the call hanging, but lately my approach has been to actually get to an operator, then "Listen, I'm really busy right now but I'd love to pursue this later. Can I get a callback number? Also, a mailing address so I can start getting the lawsuit paperwork ready." That is usually met with a "Whaaa?" which I answer with "Well, yeah, these calls are extremely illegal and the FTC has been pursuing fines and I'd like to help them out. Plus, I work for a law firm and we gobble up class-action civil suits like these." I rarely get all that out - usually they hang up. Since I've been doing that, I've never once gotten a call back.
In any case, I strongly endorse wasting as much of these guys' time as possible. The only reason their system works is because people who stay on the line are already hooked and likely customers. Their human:sale ratio is pretty good. If people tie up sales resources with dead ends, they should become pretty unprofitable pretty quickly.
That's precisely why I got in on the Kickstarter - XBMC announcing support was my sole reason. Ouya does everything any of the existing media streaming doodads do (AppleTV, Roku, whatever) and adds total openness and the potential for emu or native games (if something neat ends up showing up). I've had mine for two weeks, zero regrets. Kinda wish I'd bought two.
Not sure what your point is here. You're all over the map.
Refusing to do business based on a protected class is illegal, and the burden falls on the seller and not the buyer. As a business I cannot refuse service to homosexual Chinese Jew, but as a private citizen I can choose to not patronize the business of a homosexual Chinese Jew. That's how the system works. I can choose not to buy from Leatherby's and I can choose not to buy books from Card. They cannot refuse me service. It's pretty much that simple. You can argue all the whatifs you want, but I am done engaging you on them. If you want to discuss my purchasing habits within the framework of the law, we can do that.
As for marriage, "basic human rights" is probably an exaggeration. I'm open to a better description. But if you can't figure out why "social contract with certain legal ramifications" is different from a tax break or a zoning law from the viewpoint of a business then you probably don't understand why its absurd in the first place for a ice cream business or book writing business to even get involved in that sort of lawmaking. (And yes, I understand that Orson Scott Card the Person and Orson Scott Card the Author are the same entity, but thems the breaks.)
I don't disagree with anything you just said, but unfortunately the ideal and the reality aren't always the same. People are more or less indivisible, and you can't separate the deserving bits from the undeserving bits. Would you elect a wife-beater as governor of your state? Would you hire an animal abuser as principal of your kid's school? You don't get to skip a prison term for raping a 12 year old boy because you're a great pianist.
I wouldn't buy art from a pedophile, I wouldn't buy art from a murderer, and I wouldn't buy art from a person who is bent on depriving people of basic human privilege. I'm not saying pedophile music isn't great, I'm not saying murder paintings aren't pretty, and I'm not saying homophobe books aren't fun. But I choose not to be involved with any of them, in the same way I don't buy anything from any outlet that displays a disregard for society as a whole or society in part. I don't shop at Walmart, I don't buy BP petroleum products, and I don't buy cheese from Hilmar.
I'm not interested in arguing with Card, and I'm not trying to silence him. He's welcome to speak as often and at whatever volume he'd like to. I'm simply not going to help build the soapbox or provide the megaphone. He's welcome to do it himself, or find similarly minded people to help. Both are fine - I just don't want a part of it.
As for Leatherby's, whether they choose not to serve me or I choose not to buy from them because of a difference in views is moot. Bottom line is no transaction is going to take place. We're not talking about tax breaks or zoning laws, we're talking about basic human rights. If there is a disagreement on anything at such a fundamental level, it really doesn't matter who breaks the relationship first now, does it?
Yes, exactly that. The most effective way I can fight his message is to not fund him, so good author or not he's not getting any of my money.
We've got a local, family-owned chain here ("Leatherby’s Family Creamery") that is probably one of the best places to get ice cream. Then a couple years back it came out they put a lot of money into Prop 8. I was horrified to know my money was connected to that effort and I haven't been back since.
It's one thing for a business to lobby for laws that affect the business - maybe not a good thing, but a reasonable and expected thing. It's an entirely different for a business to lobby for things that don't even remotely affect it. Unfortunately for Card, he is his business and there really isn't anything separating the two.
Gotta agree. The vast majority of people can't get paid what they want for doing things they also want to do. Most of us choose a career with a happy intersection of "good pay" and "not terrible job." Many are not even that fortunate, and have to go with crap pay for a crap job. Crap pay for a good doesn't seem all that terrible. I would also put forward the notion that if the only thing you are qualified to do is make music AND you have specific income requirements, consider making popular music. Being upset about low pay rates for obscure music is akin to getting upset about slow steam engine sales or the low street price of the abacus. Wanna get paid well? Best bet is getting involved in something that everyone needs, not something a couple people want.
I worked in a small computer store in the mid '90s and we had lots of people come in and ask to see "MPCs." Of course we couldn't show them any, because we weren't building half-assed PCs in huge volumes. Back then, most of them just wanted to run 7th Guest or Encarta and what we built would run the hell outta either of them.;) The logo looked like this - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Mpclogo.png - and it was slathered all over crap Packard Bell et al computers - the people who were building half-assed PCs in huge volumes.;)
The failure with MPC was that multimedia titles got better faster than was anticipated, and your c1994 MPC computer was positively worthless for running 1996 multimedia titles. We had many customers buy software only to come back with puzzled faces when their MPC choked. They weren't happy when we told them their 486SX wasn't going to run anything on the shelves well.
Computers move too fast for a standard like this to exist. By the time all parties involved ratify some MPC-HD standard it will be barely sufficient to run current titles and worthless for whatever comes out tomorrow.
People who genuinely care about PC gaming are already doing just fine digesting new model numbers and looking up benchmarks and making good choices. Everyone else is just buying an Xbox or an iPad anyway. The last thing PCs need is another industry working group taking their cut of the pie with a stupid certification slash choke point.
That said, if anyone was going to do something like this, it should be Microsoft. Selling OEMs an "xbox certified" sticker to plop next to the "Designed for Windows" logo would probably money in the bank for them. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that.
Yeah, this is my feeling on the matter as well. Someone who buys up currently useless patents in the hopes that someday they will be useful is what a troll does. A group of companies pooling patents for things they all make sounds fairly reasonable - *especially* in the tech sector.
I'll be interested to see the outcome of this. Given Nokia and Sony's current situations I don't think they will be too aggressive with Apple - I think their short-term need for cash from a licensing deal would exceed their risk tolerance for fighting for a big check and forcing Apple to perform these functions in some other way. At the same time, I wonder if, in light of the Apple Maps debacle, Apple will continue with their "we don't negotiate" tactic or seek to pay out some licensing and not rock their own boat.
I completely understand defending one's territory, but Apple is *clearly* not actually threatened by the rest of the industry. Their success is only somewhat based on their technology - they should have been more gracious about sharing/selling it. Instead, they aggressively pursued an entire industry. Now, they have no friends and are trapped in a room with a bunch of scared dogs. Not position I'd like to be in literally or metaphorically.
Metro is appealing to the consumers, that's what it's doing there. Your question might as well be "I have the cli, what is Windows doing there?"
There are always going to be people whose needs exceed or defy the common denominator. Yes, Microsoft would be thrilled "experts" could shoehorn their needs into Windows 8 and Metro, but they certainly aren't losing sleep over it not happening. Their design and their focus is Joe Consumer, because Joe makes up the vast majority of the PC buying public.
You may not understand the change adverse meme, but I don't understand the "I'm an expert, how can I be expected to use simplified things?" meme.
(FWIW: I too have no idea how my multi-monitor setup translates to using 8. But I also recognize that not everything I do employs an app:screen ratio greater than 1:1.)
I do not disagree with that sentiment one iota. Unfortunately, "new security model" is not going to sell OSs to consumers. Witness the multitude of them who cling to Windows XP because "their brother in law who knows computers said it's ok." Sometimes you gotta bolt on things that don't improve usability in order to appeal to consumers, tempt their sense of New Hotness. Personally, I think anyone who spends three minutes with 8 on a touchscreen will be sold.
Additionally, I think the *idea* behind Win8 has merit. I won't lie, sometimes I need to think for a moment to remember what I can do in the place I am. I'm not that old, but switching between half a dozen platforms and a couple dozen versions is a little jarring. If Microsoft really can deliver a UI that is consistent across PC, phone, tablet, and even gaming console that's pretty cool. Not having to remember what works where would be great. I am behind that, even if it means making another change. Hell, I'm probably okay with that even if it means making a small usability sacrifice on all platforms to get that consistency. I imagine most of the consumer world would agree, too.
I broke my Android phone, and since I thought the iPhone 5 was incredibly lackluster I decided to give an old Windows 7.5 phone (Lumia) a go while I waited for the Nexus 4. Gotta be honest, I really dig the Lumia. Windows 7 OS Phone Mobile.5 or whatever it is works pretty darned well. Lack of multitasking is a PITA (especially this late in the game) but it's really quite pleasant to use and very well thought out. I am enjoying it quite a bit. So much, that I am thinking I might just get a Win 8 phone. Sadly (?) my professional life is keeping Windows systems up, and I take my work home with me.
I ran Win8 RC on an old Dell Dimension and it was fine, but not really good. But I just got an Inspiron 23 AIO PC with a touchscreen and Win8, and it's super. The touchscreen is not only more intuitive than I would have imagined, but more comfortable too. If you watch the three second tutorial that is presented when the system first starts up, the approach to the UI is obvious. Trying to apply what you know about Windows to Windows 8 is definitely going to result in confusion. The most disappointing part of Win8 is how frequently it switches back to legacy desktop... failing to make Control Panel native to Win8 is a big WTF. Win8 isn't compelling like Win7 was (IMHO - for security and reliability reasons), but there is truly nothing wrong with it, and in time it'll probably be pretty darned neat. While I was playing with it, I drew a small crowd from the office and everyone was pretty much blown away. No argument the touch screen is the secret sauce here, though.
I also just got a new Dell XPS 14, that came with Windows 8. Because my office is packed with legacy software that will barely run under 7, keeping 8 was not an option. UEFI is a HUGE PITA. I had to go into the BIOS, disable UEFI and SecureBoot, then REBOOT THE MACHINE. What would have taken ten seconds without these technologies took at least twenty seconds. It was crazy - I kept crying "WHEN WILL IT END?????"
I recall back in the day when Microsoft replaced Windows Executive with Program Manager and people lost their minds. Then they replaced Program Manager with the Start Menu and people lost their minds. Now they are replacing the Start Menu with live tiles or whatever they are called, and people are losing their minds. Again. If you don't like your UI ever changing, buy a Mac. The MacOS UI peaked in like '86 and hasn't changed since. iOS peaked in '08 and hasn't changed since. Microsoft is trying out something new - again - and chances are in five or six years they'll try something else new and everyone will whine about the loss of live tiles.
In the short term - my first hand experience with a bunch of non-technical office people - Windows 8 is positively not harder to use nor more confusing than any other OS. Everyone that has used this Inspiron sitting here has gotten Office and IE and Acrobat loaded quickly and easily, no problems nor drama. No, they can't find Control Panel but it's no great loss as they couldn't use it for anything if they could find it. Frankly, if I could deploy 8 tomorrow I would... for 99% of what people do (which is run four or five programs) it works *great*, and the touch features are intuitive in a way that Windows Key+Tab never was. Sadly, like I said, we've got legacy apps.
At several points in my PC building careers there have been price or manufacturing considerations which have caused "enthusiasts" to buy pinless CPUs. In every case, 3rd parties have supplied "adapter" boards with pre-soldered CPUs with PGAs or whatever to go into standard sockets. What may be missing this time is an official Intel CPU socket to plug into, but I highly doubt companies like ASUS are just going to shrug and abandon the market. They'll either give us a common socket to work from, or just sell boards with pre-soldered CPUs. Whatever. Not worth getting ones panties in a bunch over.
Unemployment amongst recent law school graduates is the worst it's been in history, and there is no sign of that changing. I've worked in the legal industry for a long time now, and it's ugly. I wouldn't wanna be someone with a law school loan right now.
http://chronicle.com/article/Unemployment-Among-Recent-Law/132189/ etc.
Samsung could have used up all their dismissals prior to ending up with this guy, OR it could be they viewed a self-proclaimed patent expert (my words) as an asset in their clear-cut case centering around prior art. Tough to say.
> You can't just transfer the assets to another company and then walk away from the liabilities.
Of course it's not quite that simple, but in essence you can in fact do just that. Joyent could absolutely buy all of textdrive's "stuff" without buying textdrive itself. As long as the price paid was reasonable, nothing about that sale would be fraudulent. textdrive would be then left incapable of servicing its customers, but assuming all of their other bills are paid off, who is going to be the one to push them into bankruptcy? If you are totally insolvent but nobody comes asking for anything, there is no requirement for a BK. The only people who could have pushed textdrive into BK would be its customers, but maybe Joyent, in good will, offers to continue to service textdrive customers. They haven't assumed any contracts or obligations, they are just giving free stuff away. And now they aren't doing it anymore. If you're angry, you can certainly go file a lawsuit against textdrive, but you have no claim against Joyent.
I am not saying this is what happened, but this is a mechanism by which is could have happened. I have been on both sides of these types of acquisitions, and it's pretty standard. My experience is with CLECs, but I feel safe in saying the concepts there would apply here as well. But, as you said, I'm not a lawyer either.
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Agreed. I watched my driving closely all of 2013, and after I could show that a sub 100 mile range just wasn't a problem 99% of the time I bought an EV. I've had it for three months and it's not once been a problem, or even close to a problem. I keep the gaso-powered cars (of which I have many, because I'm a gearhead) fueled up and ready to go, and maybe a couple times a month they've been called into action for something other than a track day, but mostly they just sits there. My monthly fuel bill went from $160 to $26 and I lost nothing in the deal. My house is due for a new roof in the next couple years, and I fully intend on integrating solar power into that work. I love ICEs and the cars they power, but for the daily, I am 100% satisfied with an EV.
Even if battery technology stagnates and people still need to have a backup ICE or rent an ICE for those longer trips I think that's major progress. Perhaps over time those longer trips will be handled with flight, trains, or some other form of mass transit. The idea that getting around in the future might consist of EVs and HSR makes me happy inside. Let's do it.
Indeed. You'll want to stick with Amber as long as possible.
Because Soylent Green is PEOPLE. IT'S PEOPLE I TELL YOU!
Indeed. That's what Doom did. Doom made that suggestion, albeit indirectly. Doom suggested Quake and Quake suggested Half Life.
Myst was a genre more or less to itself, a genre aimed at non-computer game players. A low-stress "experience" that included no real failure, and no rules for success. If you clicked enough, you'd eventually get it. I think more aptly, Myth's legacy is Bejewelled. Or Diablo. :*)
My $0.02, YMMV.
Yes, exactly!
I worked at a software store when Myst came out, and we sold MOUNTAINS of it. That at the 7th Guest (and Encarta, LOL) were the go-tos when people added a CD-ROM to their system and wanted something to do with it. But the feedback was universal - after a couple hours in Myst and the visual excitement wore off, it turned out there wasn't much game. It wasn't much more than a graphic Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Doom came out shortly later, and everyone forgot entirely about Myst. We sold mountains of Doom, and then we sold mountains of those *terrible* compilation CDs that had bazillions of maps downloaded off the internet. And then Doom2, and then more add-on maps (and not long after we started selling NICs and 10Base2 terminators ;). Being able to go anywhere and engage anything was what Myst didn't do, a step we had *expected* Riven to take... but it didn't.
Under a Killing Moon was also a big seller - and there were other games in the vein, too. All very interesting to play, but like the LucasFilm-style games they got murdered by FPSs and RTSs. I never quite understood why - Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island were great games with broad appeal. Strange they didn't survive longer.
heck.. what I want the answer to is what the fuck happened to space combat, and the X-Wing & Wing Commander promises of good games!
Absolutely. They only thing they can with aircraft in California is spot cars that appear to be moving faster than other cars. In order to get "clocked," a patrol car needs to pace or radar the suspect vehicle.
(Of course, this is a technicality - who is the civilian to argue with about whether the aircraft or the patrol car determined his/her speed?)
Spielberg is just mad because nobody would give him money for the movie he wanted to make. Boohoo. Hey Spielberg, if you're so sure Hollywood is stupid and you've got the true formula for Hollywood success, how about you fund it with your billions instead of theirs?
Why are talking about a two year old concept car as if it's a new thing?
This had been my approach as well, and I have had mixed results. My telemarketing calls have included the Cardholder Services scam, the "you may have a judgment" scam, the car warranty scam, and the free cruise scam. My initial approach was to get into the operator queue and leave the call hanging, but lately my approach has been to actually get to an operator, then "Listen, I'm really busy right now but I'd love to pursue this later. Can I get a callback number? Also, a mailing address so I can start getting the lawsuit paperwork ready." That is usually met with a "Whaaa?" which I answer with "Well, yeah, these calls are extremely illegal and the FTC has been pursuing fines and I'd like to help them out. Plus, I work for a law firm and we gobble up class-action civil suits like these." I rarely get all that out - usually they hang up. Since I've been doing that, I've never once gotten a call back.
In any case, I strongly endorse wasting as much of these guys' time as possible. The only reason their system works is because people who stay on the line are already hooked and likely customers. Their human:sale ratio is pretty good. If people tie up sales resources with dead ends, they should become pretty unprofitable pretty quickly.
That's precisely why I got in on the Kickstarter - XBMC announcing support was my sole reason. Ouya does everything any of the existing media streaming doodads do (AppleTV, Roku, whatever) and adds total openness and the potential for emu or native games (if something neat ends up showing up). I've had mine for two weeks, zero regrets. Kinda wish I'd bought two.
Not sure what your point is here. You're all over the map.
Refusing to do business based on a protected class is illegal, and the burden falls on the seller and not the buyer. As a business I cannot refuse service to homosexual Chinese Jew, but as a private citizen I can choose to not patronize the business of a homosexual Chinese Jew. That's how the system works. I can choose not to buy from Leatherby's and I can choose not to buy books from Card. They cannot refuse me service. It's pretty much that simple. You can argue all the whatifs you want, but I am done engaging you on them. If you want to discuss my purchasing habits within the framework of the law, we can do that.
As for marriage, "basic human rights" is probably an exaggeration. I'm open to a better description. But if you can't figure out why "social contract with certain legal ramifications" is different from a tax break or a zoning law from the viewpoint of a business then you probably don't understand why its absurd in the first place for a ice cream business or book writing business to even get involved in that sort of lawmaking. (And yes, I understand that Orson Scott Card the Person and Orson Scott Card the Author are the same entity, but thems the breaks.)
I don't disagree with anything you just said, but unfortunately the ideal and the reality aren't always the same. People are more or less indivisible, and you can't separate the deserving bits from the undeserving bits. Would you elect a wife-beater as governor of your state? Would you hire an animal abuser as principal of your kid's school? You don't get to skip a prison term for raping a 12 year old boy because you're a great pianist.
I wouldn't buy art from a pedophile, I wouldn't buy art from a murderer, and I wouldn't buy art from a person who is bent on depriving people of basic human privilege. I'm not saying pedophile music isn't great, I'm not saying murder paintings aren't pretty, and I'm not saying homophobe books aren't fun. But I choose not to be involved with any of them, in the same way I don't buy anything from any outlet that displays a disregard for society as a whole or society in part. I don't shop at Walmart, I don't buy BP petroleum products, and I don't buy cheese from Hilmar.
I'm not interested in arguing with Card, and I'm not trying to silence him. He's welcome to speak as often and at whatever volume he'd like to. I'm simply not going to help build the soapbox or provide the megaphone. He's welcome to do it himself, or find similarly minded people to help. Both are fine - I just don't want a part of it.
As for Leatherby's, whether they choose not to serve me or I choose not to buy from them because of a difference in views is moot. Bottom line is no transaction is going to take place. We're not talking about tax breaks or zoning laws, we're talking about basic human rights. If there is a disagreement on anything at such a fundamental level, it really doesn't matter who breaks the relationship first now, does it?
Yes, exactly that. The most effective way I can fight his message is to not fund him, so good author or not he's not getting any of my money.
We've got a local, family-owned chain here ("Leatherby’s Family Creamery") that is probably one of the best places to get ice cream. Then a couple years back it came out they put a lot of money into Prop 8. I was horrified to know my money was connected to that effort and I haven't been back since.
It's one thing for a business to lobby for laws that affect the business - maybe not a good thing, but a reasonable and expected thing. It's an entirely different for a business to lobby for things that don't even remotely affect it. Unfortunately for Card, he is his business and there really isn't anything separating the two.
Gotta agree. The vast majority of people can't get paid what they want for doing things they also want to do. Most of us choose a career with a happy intersection of "good pay" and "not terrible job." Many are not even that fortunate, and have to go with crap pay for a crap job. Crap pay for a good doesn't seem all that terrible. I would also put forward the notion that if the only thing you are qualified to do is make music AND you have specific income requirements, consider making popular music. Being upset about low pay rates for obscure music is akin to getting upset about slow steam engine sales or the low street price of the abacus. Wanna get paid well? Best bet is getting involved in something that everyone needs, not something a couple people want.
I worked in a small computer store in the mid '90s and we had lots of people come in and ask to see "MPCs." Of course we couldn't show them any, because we weren't building half-assed PCs in huge volumes. Back then, most of them just wanted to run 7th Guest or Encarta and what we built would run the hell outta either of them. ;) The logo looked like this - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Mpclogo.png - and it was slathered all over crap Packard Bell et al computers - the people who were building half-assed PCs in huge volumes. ;)
The failure with MPC was that multimedia titles got better faster than was anticipated, and your c1994 MPC computer was positively worthless for running 1996 multimedia titles. We had many customers buy software only to come back with puzzled faces when their MPC choked. They weren't happy when we told them their 486SX wasn't going to run anything on the shelves well.
Computers move too fast for a standard like this to exist. By the time all parties involved ratify some MPC-HD standard it will be barely sufficient to run current titles and worthless for whatever comes out tomorrow.
People who genuinely care about PC gaming are already doing just fine digesting new model numbers and looking up benchmarks and making good choices. Everyone else is just buying an Xbox or an iPad anyway. The last thing PCs need is another industry working group taking their cut of the pie with a stupid certification slash choke point.
That said, if anyone was going to do something like this, it should be Microsoft. Selling OEMs an "xbox certified" sticker to plop next to the "Designed for Windows" logo would probably money in the bank for them. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that.
Yeah, this is my feeling on the matter as well. Someone who buys up currently useless patents in the hopes that someday they will be useful is what a troll does. A group of companies pooling patents for things they all make sounds fairly reasonable - *especially* in the tech sector.
I'll be interested to see the outcome of this. Given Nokia and Sony's current situations I don't think they will be too aggressive with Apple - I think their short-term need for cash from a licensing deal would exceed their risk tolerance for fighting for a big check and forcing Apple to perform these functions in some other way. At the same time, I wonder if, in light of the Apple Maps debacle, Apple will continue with their "we don't negotiate" tactic or seek to pay out some licensing and not rock their own boat.
I completely understand defending one's territory, but Apple is *clearly* not actually threatened by the rest of the industry. Their success is only somewhat based on their technology - they should have been more gracious about sharing/selling it. Instead, they aggressively pursued an entire industry. Now, they have no friends and are trapped in a room with a bunch of scared dogs. Not position I'd like to be in literally or metaphorically.
Your post intrigues me. Tell me more.
Dollar coins at the strip club sounds both dangerous and hilarious.
Metro is appealing to the consumers, that's what it's doing there. Your question might as well be "I have the cli, what is Windows doing there?"
There are always going to be people whose needs exceed or defy the common denominator. Yes, Microsoft would be thrilled "experts" could shoehorn their needs into Windows 8 and Metro, but they certainly aren't losing sleep over it not happening. Their design and their focus is Joe Consumer, because Joe makes up the vast majority of the PC buying public.
You may not understand the change adverse meme, but I don't understand the "I'm an expert, how can I be expected to use simplified things?" meme.
(FWIW: I too have no idea how my multi-monitor setup translates to using 8. But I also recognize that not everything I do employs an app:screen ratio greater than 1:1.)
I do not disagree with that sentiment one iota. Unfortunately, "new security model" is not going to sell OSs to consumers. Witness the multitude of them who cling to Windows XP because "their brother in law who knows computers said it's ok." Sometimes you gotta bolt on things that don't improve usability in order to appeal to consumers, tempt their sense of New Hotness. Personally, I think anyone who spends three minutes with 8 on a touchscreen will be sold.
Additionally, I think the *idea* behind Win8 has merit. I won't lie, sometimes I need to think for a moment to remember what I can do in the place I am. I'm not that old, but switching between half a dozen platforms and a couple dozen versions is a little jarring. If Microsoft really can deliver a UI that is consistent across PC, phone, tablet, and even gaming console that's pretty cool. Not having to remember what works where would be great. I am behind that, even if it means making another change. Hell, I'm probably okay with that even if it means making a small usability sacrifice on all platforms to get that consistency. I imagine most of the consumer world would agree, too.
I broke my Android phone, and since I thought the iPhone 5 was incredibly lackluster I decided to give an old Windows 7.5 phone (Lumia) a go while I waited for the Nexus 4. Gotta be honest, I really dig the Lumia. Windows 7 OS Phone Mobile .5 or whatever it is works pretty darned well. Lack of multitasking is a PITA (especially this late in the game) but it's really quite pleasant to use and very well thought out. I am enjoying it quite a bit. So much, that I am thinking I might just get a Win 8 phone. Sadly (?) my professional life is keeping Windows systems up, and I take my work home with me.
I ran Win8 RC on an old Dell Dimension and it was fine, but not really good. But I just got an Inspiron 23 AIO PC with a touchscreen and Win8, and it's super. The touchscreen is not only more intuitive than I would have imagined, but more comfortable too. If you watch the three second tutorial that is presented when the system first starts up, the approach to the UI is obvious. Trying to apply what you know about Windows to Windows 8 is definitely going to result in confusion. The most disappointing part of Win8 is how frequently it switches back to legacy desktop... failing to make Control Panel native to Win8 is a big WTF. Win8 isn't compelling like Win7 was (IMHO - for security and reliability reasons), but there is truly nothing wrong with it, and in time it'll probably be pretty darned neat. While I was playing with it, I drew a small crowd from the office and everyone was pretty much blown away. No argument the touch screen is the secret sauce here, though.
I also just got a new Dell XPS 14, that came with Windows 8. Because my office is packed with legacy software that will barely run under 7, keeping 8 was not an option. UEFI is a HUGE PITA. I had to go into the BIOS, disable UEFI and SecureBoot, then REBOOT THE MACHINE. What would have taken ten seconds without these technologies took at least twenty seconds. It was crazy - I kept crying "WHEN WILL IT END?????"
I recall back in the day when Microsoft replaced Windows Executive with Program Manager and people lost their minds. Then they replaced Program Manager with the Start Menu and people lost their minds. Now they are replacing the Start Menu with live tiles or whatever they are called, and people are losing their minds. Again. If you don't like your UI ever changing, buy a Mac. The MacOS UI peaked in like '86 and hasn't changed since. iOS peaked in '08 and hasn't changed since. Microsoft is trying out something new - again - and chances are in five or six years they'll try something else new and everyone will whine about the loss of live tiles.
In the short term - my first hand experience with a bunch of non-technical office people - Windows 8 is positively not harder to use nor more confusing than any other OS. Everyone that has used this Inspiron sitting here has gotten Office and IE and Acrobat loaded quickly and easily, no problems nor drama. No, they can't find Control Panel but it's no great loss as they couldn't use it for anything if they could find it. Frankly, if I could deploy 8 tomorrow I would... for 99% of what people do (which is run four or five programs) it works *great*, and the touch features are intuitive in a way that Windows Key+Tab never was. Sadly, like I said, we've got legacy apps.
At several points in my PC building careers there have been price or manufacturing considerations which have caused "enthusiasts" to buy pinless CPUs. In every case, 3rd parties have supplied "adapter" boards with pre-soldered CPUs with PGAs or whatever to go into standard sockets. What may be missing this time is an official Intel CPU socket to plug into, but I highly doubt companies like ASUS are just going to shrug and abandon the market. They'll either give us a common socket to work from, or just sell boards with pre-soldered CPUs. Whatever. Not worth getting ones panties in a bunch over.
Unemployment amongst recent law school graduates is the worst it's been in history, and there is no sign of that changing. I've worked in the legal industry for a long time now, and it's ugly. I wouldn't wanna be someone with a law school loan right now. http://chronicle.com/article/Unemployment-Among-Recent-Law/132189/ etc.
Samsung could have used up all their dismissals prior to ending up with this guy, OR it could be they viewed a self-proclaimed patent expert (my words) as an asset in their clear-cut case centering around prior art. Tough to say.
> You can't just transfer the assets to another company and then walk away from the liabilities. Of course it's not quite that simple, but in essence you can in fact do just that. Joyent could absolutely buy all of textdrive's "stuff" without buying textdrive itself. As long as the price paid was reasonable, nothing about that sale would be fraudulent. textdrive would be then left incapable of servicing its customers, but assuming all of their other bills are paid off, who is going to be the one to push them into bankruptcy? If you are totally insolvent but nobody comes asking for anything, there is no requirement for a BK. The only people who could have pushed textdrive into BK would be its customers, but maybe Joyent, in good will, offers to continue to service textdrive customers. They haven't assumed any contracts or obligations, they are just giving free stuff away. And now they aren't doing it anymore. If you're angry, you can certainly go file a lawsuit against textdrive, but you have no claim against Joyent. I am not saying this is what happened, but this is a mechanism by which is could have happened. I have been on both sides of these types of acquisitions, and it's pretty standard. My experience is with CLECs, but I feel safe in saying the concepts there would apply here as well. But, as you said, I'm not a lawyer either.