As I understand (from the summary, I didn't RTFA), this doesn't violate net neutrality. "Best-effort" vs "quality guaranteed", aren't all consumer connections "best effort" currently?
As long as "best effort" doesn't really mean "we're gonna selectively slow down whatever we feel is using too much bandwidth" I'm ok with that.
You can actually reject (they actually don't see a rejection, just don't see the friendship approval) friendship requests.
Yeah, some might feel it to be a bit rude but if you really don't want those people in your life I guess you can reject them fine on Facebook.
Anyway, Facebook really needs better privacy options but that's another completely different topic...
It's a pretty well known fact nowadays that the human brain is not a machine, and as such, needs a break every so often.
Since small breaks are actually needed to keep the brain fresh and doing good work what do you get forbidding these things? Answer: nothing good. People will find something else to do on the breaks even if it's talking to coworkers besides the coffee machine. Besides, they will be more resented, angry and productivity will probably be lower than if they were happy.
Of course, one thing is taking small breaks and another one is checking facebook every 5 minutes. In that case you're probably getting no work done.
In the end is the same as restricting the Internet: A middle ground is probably the best choice. It also helps to communicate clearly the company policies regarding these things.
Well I guess Google carefully considered pros and cons before charging for maps and if they didn't is their problem.
The summary (yes, I didn't RTFA) seems to imply that the right or normal thing would be that google dominated the maps landscape. Well, obviously they have to compete with everyone else and if a decision makes them lose clients it's their problem. Maybe that loss was calculated and they calculated they'd get more benefits in the long run if they get rid of non-paying customers.
What I meant is that AAA games on Steam are usually either full price or deeply discounted on sales and when they're not on sale are usually cheaper on the physical version.
Anyway I mostly agree with you: I also think that PC's are currently a better deal than consoles and even though I practically only buy games on Steam on sales I still have several I haven't touched yet.
To be fair AAA titles are 20$ on Steam only after a long time after release or on sales (which are quite common). The rest of the time games are recommended price which is about 50$ or 60$. Physical copies also go down in price much faster than Steam. Anyway, between Steam sales and low prices on physical copies PC games end up being much cheaper than their console versions.
Quoting the summary: "The old guard...are losing out when compared with the new generation of gaming platform developers".
This clearly doesn't mean that the consoles are dying, it simply means that the smarthphones and tables have a installed base much greater than the traditional consoles and they managed to get a bigger audience. Mobile games are also simpler and cheaper than traditional "hardcore" console/PC games.
At the end it's a similar story to that of the Wii: Someone found a way to reach a much bigger audience than that of traditional games and they made a ton of money in the process.
+1000. To me is very suspicious, in a piece of news taking about a controversial new Microsoft technology, seeing a first post which is long, well-written and defending the Microsoft change. VERY suspicious
So it seems. The only difference seems to be that the hardware will be stable for a number of years just like every game console ever.
Anyway, since PC games have been hold back for several years already since they're developed taking into account console limitations even the point of stability is moot.
I guess things are a bit different in Europe (like in many other things). I've used this company twice and, while they didn't pay too much for my used phones it seems they do value them relative to the real unsubsidized price.
For instance, a few current prices for used phones (must be working, all models refer to international versions):
Samsung Galaxy S: 115 €.
Iphone 4: 201 €
Blackberry bold touch 9900: 196 €
Not bad, huh?
I don't know where Jane Silber she draws her conclusions from but I humbly disagree. If Microsoft, with all their millions (dedicated to marketing) haven't been able to gain barely any market share in smartphones with windows phone 7 I don't see what could Ubuntu do.
Besides that, there are several alternative smartphone OSes which have failed and not because of technical reasons. E.g: WebOS, Maemo/Meego.
She's just expressing her wishes and hoping it becomes true but seems unlikely.
The funny thing is that if they allow selling the tech to countries without "repressive regimes" how can they be sure is not used for evil?
Or are "good" countries allowed to use surveilance tech for all the purposes they want including spying their own citizens even if its for the "noble" goal of combating intellectual property theft?
Yes, I am cynical
Well, if, as you say, there's nothing between the good screens and the absoulte rubbish it might be because there's no middle-of-the-road price and performance technology for screens.
On the other hand, do you realize that an unlocked off-contract iphone costs around 600 or 700$? There is no inexpensive, reasonably good quality, iphone as you seem to expect from the Android front. Why is this? Apple might not want to taint the iphone brand with a lower quality (but still reasonably good) phone but I believe that is also very hard to make a decent phone for less than 300-400$.
I'm enraged! Why did they have to mention that the Mitsubishi spokesman is heavy? don't you think the poor man is reminded of his weight problems often enough?
really bad reporting. I'm tired of this weightism! heavy people have feelings too
How would they know then that people want it?. You would have to not buy it, not download it and making they know (how I don't know) that you'd have bought it if didn't have DRM.
How many people are going to do that? Not many I guess.
I was going to post something like this. I hope Sony or other big name ebook manufacturer makes a 9 inch device but, for the moment, the M90 seems to be the best eink reader for PDFs. Note that I said eink-based, maybe the LCD tablets are better for PDFs, I don't know, I haven't tried them. This is the mobileread M90 thread. There you'll find lots of info about it.
Apart from download caps this has other things against it such as that it doesn't provide instant gratification. If I'm going to rent a game and play it only for a couple of days I'd rather spend 30 mins going to the rental shop than waiting several hours for it to download.
Steam is different, you do have to download the games but at least you can play them forever.
For instance: GTA IV.
Buy through steam.
Open steam.
Run the game, it requires GFWL.
Register and install GFWL.
Finally start to play.
Want to play online? Too bad you need to register on "Rockstar social" or something like that.
That's when you throw the pc out of the window and grab a basketball and go outside.
Quote from TFA: "He says that it will cause packaging problems if there cannot be two System Settings entries in a desktop menu, as such when running GNOME the KDE System Settings application may not appear listed".
If that's the case it's a bit ridiculous. Maybe it'd be good to add some kind of namespace system.
Anyway...this doesn't deserve to be on slashdot front page.
In my opinion, the debate is not screens vs paper its distracting environments vs non-distracting.
If you try to do serious work/learning and you've got apps open for email,im,facebook etc. you're going to be interrupted every few minutes and each interruption breaks your concentration which is difficult and time consuming to regain later.
I even close all distractions when I try to concentrate at work (the most important is email).
So, it's possible to learn using a computer you just have to close everything not related to the task at hand.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand (from the summary, I didn't RTFA), this doesn't violate net neutrality. "Best-effort" vs "quality guaranteed", aren't all consumer connections "best effort" currently?
As long as "best effort" doesn't really mean "we're gonna selectively slow down whatever we feel is using too much bandwidth" I'm ok with that.
You can actually reject (they actually don't see a rejection, just don't see the friendship approval) friendship requests. ...
Yeah, some might feel it to be a bit rude but if you really don't want those people in your life I guess you can reject them fine on Facebook.
Anyway, Facebook really needs better privacy options but that's another completely different topic
It's a pretty well known fact nowadays that the human brain is not a machine, and as such, needs a break every so often.
Since small breaks are actually needed to keep the brain fresh and doing good work what do you get forbidding these things? Answer: nothing good. People will find something else to do on the breaks even if it's talking to coworkers besides the coffee machine. Besides, they will be more resented, angry and productivity will probably be lower than if they were happy.
Of course, one thing is taking small breaks and another one is checking facebook every 5 minutes. In that case you're probably getting no work done. In the end is the same as restricting the Internet: A middle ground is probably the best choice. It also helps to communicate clearly the company policies regarding these things.
Well I guess Google carefully considered pros and cons before charging for maps and if they didn't is their problem.
The summary (yes, I didn't RTFA) seems to imply that the right or normal thing would be that google dominated the maps landscape. Well, obviously they have to compete with everyone else and if a decision makes them lose clients it's their problem. Maybe that loss was calculated and they calculated they'd get more benefits in the long run if they get rid of non-paying customers.
What I meant is that AAA games on Steam are usually either full price or deeply discounted on sales and when they're not on sale are usually cheaper on the physical version.
Anyway I mostly agree with you: I also think that PC's are currently a better deal than consoles and even though I practically only buy games on Steam on sales I still have several I haven't touched yet.
To be fair AAA titles are 20$ on Steam only after a long time after release or on sales (which are quite common). The rest of the time games are recommended price which is about 50$ or 60$. Physical copies also go down in price much faster than Steam. Anyway, between Steam sales and low prices on physical copies PC games end up being much cheaper than their console versions.
Quoting the summary: "The old guard ...are losing out when compared with the new generation of gaming platform developers".
This clearly doesn't mean that the consoles are dying, it simply means that the smarthphones and tables have a installed base much greater than the traditional consoles and they managed to get a bigger audience. Mobile games are also simpler and cheaper than traditional "hardcore" console/PC games.
At the end it's a similar story to that of the Wii: Someone found a way to reach a much bigger audience than that of traditional games and they made a ton of money in the process.
+1000. To me is very suspicious, in a piece of news taking about a controversial new Microsoft technology, seeing a first post which is long, well-written and defending the Microsoft change. VERY suspicious
So it seems. The only difference seems to be that the hardware will be stable for a number of years just like every game console ever.
Anyway, since PC games have been hold back for several years already since they're developed taking into account console limitations even the point of stability is moot.
I guess things are a bit different in Europe (like in many other things). I've used this company twice and, while they didn't pay too much for my used phones it seems they do value them relative to the real unsubsidized price.
For instance, a few current prices for used phones (must be working, all models refer to international versions): Samsung Galaxy S: 115 €.
Iphone 4: 201 €
Blackberry bold touch 9900: 196 €
Not bad, huh?
I don't know where Jane Silber she draws her conclusions from but I humbly disagree. If Microsoft, with all their millions (dedicated to marketing) haven't been able to gain barely any market share in smartphones with windows phone 7 I don't see what could Ubuntu do. Besides that, there are several alternative smartphone OSes which have failed and not because of technical reasons. E.g: WebOS, Maemo/Meego. She's just expressing her wishes and hoping it becomes true but seems unlikely.
The funny thing is that if they allow selling the tech to countries without "repressive regimes" how can they be sure is not used for evil?
Or are "good" countries allowed to use surveilance tech for all the purposes they want including spying their own citizens even if its for the "noble" goal of combating intellectual property theft?
Yes, I am cynical
Well, if, as you say, there's nothing between the good screens and the absoulte rubbish it might be because there's no middle-of-the-road price and performance technology for screens. On the other hand, do you realize that an unlocked off-contract iphone costs around 600 or 700$? There is no inexpensive, reasonably good quality, iphone as you seem to expect from the Android front. Why is this? Apple might not want to taint the iphone brand with a lower quality (but still reasonably good) phone but I believe that is also very hard to make a decent phone for less than 300-400$.
I'm enraged! Why did they have to mention that the Mitsubishi spokesman is heavy? don't you think the poor man is reminded of his weight problems often enough? really bad reporting. I'm tired of this weightism! heavy people have feelings too
Please, someone with mod points mod parent up. This looked suspicious from the beggining, right now it seems to be a total scam
How would they know then that people want it?. You would have to not buy it, not download it and making they know (how I don't know) that you'd have bought it if didn't have DRM.
How many people are going to do that? Not many I guess.
I was going to post something like this. I hope Sony or other big name ebook manufacturer makes a 9 inch device but, for the moment, the M90 seems to be the best eink reader for PDFs. Note that I said eink-based, maybe the LCD tablets are better for PDFs, I don't know, I haven't tried them.
This is the mobileread M90 thread. There you'll find lots of info about it.
Obviously not, that's why they're using it for this :)
This is a test comment, please disregard it. Thanks
Apart from download caps this has other things against it such as that it doesn't provide instant gratification. If I'm going to rent a game and play it only for a couple of days I'd rather spend 30 mins going to the rental shop than waiting several hours for it to download.
Steam is different, you do have to download the games but at least you can play them forever.
For instance: GTA IV.
Buy through steam.
Open steam.
Run the game, it requires GFWL.
Register and install GFWL.
Finally start to play.
Want to play online? Too bad you need to register on "Rockstar social" or something like that.
That's when you throw the pc out of the window and grab a basketball and go outside.
Soo true. I'd mod you up if I could. Women are not in IT just because they don't like it.
I believe Samsung Galaxy player may be what you're looking for.
Quote from TFA: "He says that it will cause packaging problems if there cannot be two System Settings entries in a desktop menu, as such when running GNOME the KDE System Settings application may not appear listed".
If that's the case it's a bit ridiculous. Maybe it'd be good to add some kind of namespace system.
Anyway...this doesn't deserve to be on slashdot front page.
In my opinion, the debate is not screens vs paper its distracting environments vs non-distracting. If you try to do serious work/learning and you've got apps open for email,im,facebook etc. you're going to be interrupted every few minutes and each interruption breaks your concentration which is difficult and time consuming to regain later. I even close all distractions when I try to concentrate at work (the most important is email). So, it's possible to learn using a computer you just have to close everything not related to the task at hand.