I would have thought it was much higher. IT policies everywhere I've seen are regarded like speeding limits; absolutely meaningless, except when somebody official is watching you.
The typical response by IT is to make the policies more restrictive and impractical, which, of course, makes adherence to them even less likely.
I don't have mod points, but it looks like you're already at +5. You nailed my feelings exactly.
So many IT guys who rant over DRM, the Microsoft monopoly, and so forth, have no problem with obsessive control over other people's desktop. When any manner of account permissions or ini file change requires three weeks of pestering IT, it makes total sense for companies to investigate ways of navigating around the whole costly, restrictive mess.
Solution is to create packaging that has a small, cellophone-covered hole (no bigger than a cm^2). This allows both the buyer and seller to verify the contents of the case. Many mailing envelopes have a small hole punched in them for the same reason.
When it comes to global warming, evolution, and stem cell research-- the biggest science-related issues up for discussion this cycle-- the Democrats clearly side with the science.
I think that's a bit of a simplification. On the issue of global warming and evolution, the fact that the Dems are on the right side of science is mostly a coincidence. If the Republicans saw the light, embraced evolution, the Dempcrats would promptly shift their position. Neither party's stances are based on adherence to scientific principle as much as they are in political expediency and partisanship.
And I would argue that the republican position against stem cell research does not rise from ignorance of science. It's an ethical position, a policy position. You may disagree with them politically, but there as yet are no scientific studies about when political rights are invested into a developing fetus, or what the long-term cultural implications of stem cell harvesting will be. This truly is a political issue, which politician may be better equipped than scientists to resolve.
I don't mind the dualshock, but I think both the original x-box and the gamecube controllers were better. And a Wii beats everything, because it dispenses with the notion that your hands need to be cramped together on your lap. Even without the pointer/motion sensitive functionality, I would love to see controllers split into detached left hand/right hand components.
Well, presumably more hardware sales leads to more software sales in the future, ultimately resulting in profit. Otherwise, they'd be best advised to close up shop and get out of the market right now.
Ok, that's rhetorical, obviously some people do, but I don't, and I don't think most people really do. Even on a fast connection, there's a substantial difference between a 2 gig file and a 20 gig file. I would almost always opt for the smaller; the difference in quality isn't enough for me to care about.
Also, consider the Wii can display in 480p HD, which isn't stellar, but it's better than the SDTV that most people are used to. DVD quality video is still quite acceptable. The problem with this service on the Wii is lack of storage space.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. The booth babes were all too noisy? Were they singing or yelling, or are you just objecting to their voices? I can't imagine the cons (NOISY babes) outweighing the pros (noisy BABES).
Do you really want one person controlling what you see and hear even if they bought the rights to do so?
If the only alternative is federal legislation mandating what alternative views will be provided to us... well, we're pretty much screwed either way.
But I think the only way somebody can truly monopolize communication is with the full cooperation of a corrupt government. Therefore, minimalizing the government's ability to influence communications is probably the safer route.
Who has more editions, Microsoft's 360 or Sony's PS3? And I'm not asking sarcastically, I've really and truly lost track. They both have far too many. Two is probably too many.
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy
on
RIAA Sues Usenet.com
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for the story. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It's nice to put an individual's face to some of the topics we argue about here.
I wouldn't have thought pirated music would have made it into bars or other businesses... because that seems like such a risk. If one of them is caught with 10,000 pirated songs, they would be decimated by the fines. None of the businesses I've ever worked for would do something like that.
It's a quandry, and a good part of it is the record industry's fault. It shouldn't cost $100,000 to get a wide assortment of music in the first place. Somebody's going to cheat, and whoever does gets a huge advantage, then everybody else will have to follow suit to stay competitive. It seems that the RIAA or whoever would make more money by reducing the fees.
Your boss has a real cute grand-daughter, by the way;)
crap, I did an emoticon on slashdot. They'll crucify me.,
If you tried to kill me, it's ok for me to kill you. If you were minding your business, it wouldn't be ok for me to kill you.
Same applies in reverse. That's how most religions and legal systems work.
There's certainly much killing in the bible that's condoned, so it doesn't make sense that the ten commandments would forbid it. And just using common sense, there is a difference between "killing" and "killing a killer".
By the same token, it might not be that big a deal that nobody but Nintendo has released a successful Wii game. I suspect other game studio don't quite grok the platform. This is a completely different kind of game console -- you can't just port traditional twitch-and-jump games to it.
A lot of the 3rd party games have been duds, but I don't think you can say that nobody besides Nintendo has been successful. Resident Evil IV, for instance, was both an excellent game, and pure profit for capcom. Red Steel was flawed, but sold a lot. Trauma Center was a big hit for Atlus.
Keep in mind that games for the wii are, generally, just cheaper to create than for the 360 or PS3. Publishers want games to make a profit, and costs are just as important as sales.
Re:Artificial Intelligence?
on
Cracking Go
·
· Score: 1
But a conclusively winning Go program could be written right now. It's a solved problem. It might take a hundred million years to run, but so what? Beating Go through the exhaustive search method just seems like a solved problem.
Whereas writing a program that would play winning Go on today's hardware would require breakthroughs, because the exhaustive search technique would have to be abandoned. It would advance the understanding of AI. It's possible; people do it. We just don't know how to program it.
... and introduce a ".foriegn" domain. Then all those other people would have their own domain, and we would have.com,.net,.org,.gov, and.edu. The grouping makes logical sense... they are all foriegn.
The layered construction makes it sound like the material's not isomorphic, and I bet there are different compression and tensile characteristics.
I know almost nothing about material science. But if a layered material exhibits most of it's strength along one axis, couldn't the same process be adapted to use (for lack of a better term) threads? Multiple fine threads of distinct material bonded together, forming a type of cable. Wouldn't that show structural integrity along two dimensions instead of one?
Neither my spellchecker or online dictionary recognize this word, but I still like it very much. Is it real?
Re:Roland Piquepaille
on
Ask Rob Malda
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The people have spoken, and yet he's still here.
Nah, I bet most posters couldn't care less. Don't mistake a noisy 5% for the whole. I wonder if that's a seed for a question?
Mr. Taco: You have access to stats, such as number of pageviews, active posters, and so forth. This lets you objectively measure a lot of things that we can't see. What do you think are some misconceptions that we have about slashdot? Maybe we're really still mostly IE users? Is 'videogames' the most read section? Perhaps the tech and science articles that everybody seems to clamor for are really the least read?
A few months ago I did a little poking around to see what my son was doing on the internet.
Well, besides all the obvious things a 17 year old looks for on the net, he was hanging out on a discussion forum for video games. The first post of his that I found was this:
Slashdot Mirror
I would have thought it was much higher. IT policies everywhere I've seen are regarded like speeding limits; absolutely meaningless, except when somebody official is watching you.
The typical response by IT is to make the policies more restrictive and impractical, which, of course, makes adherence to them even less likely.
I had an interesting IT experience about a year back, and said to myself, "self, I bet you could make the front page of digg with _this_".
I think you just gamed Slashdot.
According to media create the Japaneses sales of the PS3 was 17k last week, the 360 3k. Thats almost 7 times as much.
And it's even closer to 6 times as much.
I don't have mod points, but it looks like you're already at +5. You nailed my feelings exactly.
So many IT guys who rant over DRM, the Microsoft monopoly, and so forth, have no problem with obsessive control over other people's desktop. When any manner of account permissions or ini file change requires three weeks of pestering IT, it makes total sense for companies to investigate ways of navigating around the whole costly, restrictive mess.
Solution is to create packaging that has a small, cellophone-covered hole (no bigger than a cm^2). This allows both the buyer and seller to verify the contents of the case. Many mailing envelopes have a small hole punched in them for the same reason.
When it comes to global warming, evolution, and stem cell research-- the biggest science-related issues up for discussion this cycle-- the Democrats clearly side with the science.
I think that's a bit of a simplification. On the issue of global warming and evolution, the fact that the Dems are on the right side of science is mostly a coincidence. If the Republicans saw the light, embraced evolution, the Dempcrats would promptly shift their position. Neither party's stances are based on adherence to scientific principle as much as they are in political expediency and partisanship.
And I would argue that the republican position against stem cell research does not rise from ignorance of science. It's an ethical position, a policy position. You may disagree with them politically, but there as yet are no scientific studies about when political rights are invested into a developing fetus, or what the long-term cultural implications of stem cell harvesting will be. This truly is a political issue, which politician may be better equipped than scientists to resolve.
I don't mind the dualshock, but I think both the original x-box and the gamecube controllers were better. And a Wii beats everything, because it dispenses with the notion that your hands need to be cramped together on your lap. Even without the pointer/motion sensitive functionality, I would love to see controllers split into detached left hand/right hand components.
Well, presumably more hardware sales leads to more software sales in the future, ultimately resulting in profit. Otherwise, they'd be best advised to close up shop and get out of the market right now.
But who wants to download HD movies?
Ok, that's rhetorical, obviously some people do, but I don't, and I don't think most people really do. Even on a fast connection, there's a substantial difference between a 2 gig file and a 20 gig file. I would almost always opt for the smaller; the difference in quality isn't enough for me to care about.
Also, consider the Wii can display in 480p HD, which isn't stellar, but it's better than the SDTV that most people are used to. DVD quality video is still quite acceptable. The problem with this service on the Wii is lack of storage space.
Slashdot's sorely lacking a "+1, Sexy" mod. That would really invigorate this site, I think.
(Along with my proposed "-1, Ugly" mod)
That's as many as my Amiga!
Well, at least in HAM mode...
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. The booth babes were all too noisy? Were they singing or yelling, or are you just objecting to their voices? I can't imagine the cons (NOISY babes) outweighing the pros (noisy BABES).
Do you really want one person controlling what you see and hear even if they bought the rights to do so?
If the only alternative is federal legislation mandating what alternative views will be provided to us... well, we're pretty much screwed either way.
But I think the only way somebody can truly monopolize communication is with the full cooperation of a corrupt government. Therefore, minimalizing the government's ability to influence communications is probably the safer route.
Basically, you're saying the Wii might as will have "Don't Panic" written on the box in friendly, inoffensive letters.
Who has more editions, Microsoft's 360 or Sony's PS3? And I'm not asking sarcastically, I've really and truly lost track. They both have far too many. Two is probably too many.
Thanks for the story. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It's nice to put an individual's face to some of the topics we argue about here.
;)
I wouldn't have thought pirated music would have made it into bars or other businesses... because that seems like such a risk. If one of them is caught with 10,000 pirated songs, they would be decimated by the fines. None of the businesses I've ever worked for would do something like that.
It's a quandry, and a good part of it is the record industry's fault. It shouldn't cost $100,000 to get a wide assortment of music in the first place. Somebody's going to cheat, and whoever does gets a huge advantage, then everybody else will have to follow suit to stay competitive. It seems that the RIAA or whoever would make more money by reducing the fees.
Your boss has a real cute grand-daughter, by the way
crap, I did an emoticon on slashdot. They'll crucify me.,
If you tried to kill me, it's ok for me to kill you. If you were minding your business, it wouldn't be ok for me to kill you.
Same applies in reverse. That's how most religions and legal systems work.
There's certainly much killing in the bible that's condoned, so it doesn't make sense that the ten commandments would forbid it. And just using common sense, there is a difference between "killing" and "killing a killer".
By the same token, it might not be that big a deal that nobody but Nintendo has released a successful Wii game. I suspect other game studio don't quite grok the platform. This is a completely different kind of game console -- you can't just port traditional twitch-and-jump games to it.
A lot of the 3rd party games have been duds, but I don't think you can say that nobody besides Nintendo has been successful. Resident Evil IV, for instance, was both an excellent game, and pure profit for capcom. Red Steel was flawed, but sold a lot. Trauma Center was a big hit for Atlus.
Keep in mind that games for the wii are, generally, just cheaper to create than for the 360 or PS3. Publishers want games to make a profit, and costs are just as important as sales.
But a conclusively winning Go program could be written right now. It's a solved problem. It might take a hundred million years to run, but so what? Beating Go through the exhaustive search method just seems like a solved problem.
Whereas writing a program that would play winning Go on today's hardware would require breakthroughs, because the exhaustive search technique would have to be abandoned. It would advance the understanding of AI. It's possible; people do it. We just don't know how to program it.
... and introduce a ".foriegn" domain. Then all those other people would have their own domain, and we would have .com, .net, .org, .gov, and .edu. The grouping makes logical sense... they are all foriegn.
The layered construction makes it sound like the material's not isomorphic, and I bet there are different compression and tensile characteristics.
I know almost nothing about material science. But if a layered material exhibits most of it's strength along one axis, couldn't the same process be adapted to use (for lack of a better term) threads? Multiple fine threads of distinct material bonded together, forming a type of cable. Wouldn't that show structural integrity along two dimensions instead of one?
vaggueties
Neither my spellchecker or online dictionary recognize this word, but I still like it very much. Is it real?
The people have spoken, and yet he's still here.
Nah, I bet most posters couldn't care less. Don't mistake a noisy 5% for the whole. I wonder if that's a seed for a question?
Mr. Taco: You have access to stats, such as number of pageviews, active posters, and so forth. This lets you objectively measure a lot of things that we can't see. What do you think are some misconceptions that we have about slashdot? Maybe we're really still mostly IE users? Is 'videogames' the most read section? Perhaps the tech and science articles that everybody seems to clamor for are really the least read?
What? We want the format war to be prolonged as far as possible, for a number of reasons.
1) They both suck.
2) The longer it's drawn out the cheaper the stuff will get.
3) The longer it's drawn out the more likely the winner will get thoroughly cracked.
4) DVDs still have several more years of life in them.
5) Sony and Microsoft both suck
6) If we hold off long enough, we might get a brand new medium with much better storage, allowing us to render the whole HD/BD thing irrelevant.
A few months ago I did a little poking around to see what my son was doing on the internet.
Well, besides all the obvious things a 17 year old looks for on the net, he was hanging out on a discussion forum for video games. The first post of his that I found was this:
paint sux use gimp.
As a father, I'm conflicted.