"Nice enough"? How about "cheap enough"? Stuffing more content onto each DVD means reducing the data rates at which each hour of content is stored - like ripping MP3s (or your audio compressor of choice) at 128 kbps instead of 320. IMHO, they already push the quality envelope with 6-8 (half-hour) episodes of television shows on a DVD, especially if you're talking about live action instead of cartoon. Personally, I'd be much happier if companies would hold themselves to two hours of higher quality video per disc. Getting up to swap discs at that interval shouldn't be that physically demanding.
Yeah, right. So there are no millionaires or billionaires in other countries? There are no talented people outside of the States who are paid a lot more because their talents have a higher value than others?
You're welcome to your opinion on this particular situation, but implying that greed is unique to America doesn't pass the smell test. The fact that Rupert Murdoch (lord and master of FOX) is an Australian possessed of legendary greed is proof by itself.
Just an addendum to your note on the timing of the job cuts, I would note that the bulk of the people cut will be "sales associates" (read: "register monkeys"). I don't think it's that big a crisis losing a few minimum-wage (or nearly minimum) jobs. There's always an opening in a McDonald's or Burger King. In the long run, it's actually a good thing (even in the area of unemployment) since Gateway will, presumably, be a healthier company after the move.
Now I'm even dumber. I thought the [insane?] AC meant it was in one of the linked articles, but upon further review it appears I missed that link in the/. text. I'm sure a couple of people could do some damage to my karma by modding all three posts to -1. It's no less than I deserve, and I shall slink off in shame. But I'll still be happy.:) --God, I love ASCII.
Welcome to Excuseville. For the real reason Oddworld appeared exclusively on Xbox, please refer to this perfectly aged, smoky flavored Penny Arcade Classic.
You're making a big assumption. Namely, that all the people who find bugs in a game will find a board and post about them. I've run into bugs with several console games over the past couple years. In all but one case, I've choked down some bile and just played through the pain without ever mentioning the problems online. Why? Because there's just no point. I'm not going to get my money back (many times I don't even want it because the game is otherwise fun), the company isn't going to send me a fixed disc, no patch is going to be released, etc. The exception was KotR on Xbox, and it was because one particular bug (stealth rescue) completely ruined one of my games and I needed to vent my spleen.
If you see hundreds of posts about a bug on one forum, I believe you can multiply that number by a hundred, or even a thousand, to get the number of people who've actually experienced the bug. Hell, on a popular board you can multiply it by ten just to get the number of people who aren't bothering to post because there are already so many posts on the subject.
Much cheaper solutions can be found from, for example, Ximeta. In fact, they have an 80GB Ethernet (plus USB 2.0) hard drive available for less than $150.
I understand the utility of a networked hard drive (and plan to go that direction for my next storage expansion). I'm only questioning the cost/benefit ratio of going wireless.
KTFT ("know" and "tech"): LaCie is just one company that already offers ethernet drives like this (sans wireless), and with much larger and faster hard drives than are possible with a 2.5" drive enclosure. Ximeta is another company in this field, and their 80GB Netdisk device (drive with Ethernet already on-board) is available right now at a price cheaper than this enclosure WITHOUT a drive. (Search Outpost, CompUSA, etc. for more information - I try not to link to retailers.)
In short, unless there is a really good reason to want the wireless aspect, this enclosure is a monstrous waste of cash.
The price for the hardware isn't that bad, as you say. But what about the utility? How would this change my perception of storage? I've been sitting here trying hard to think of a utility for the wireless capability that isn't handled better wired. The only utility I can think of is in an already completely wireless setting where one is too cheap to dedicate a computer to file serving - a situation I would think is pretty rare. Of course, I have a hard time understanding why several computers in a fixed location would be connected via wireless in the first place when going wired is cheaper, faster and more secure. Maybe I'm losing my geekiness.
Welcome to jumping the gun. I've read pages of replies and nobody has mentioned an inaccuracy in the Slashdot blurb. It takes slightly more than just "selecting" the message. Specifically, you have to select the message with the preview pane turned on. While it is on by default in Outlook, it's VERY easy to turn it off (which I've done because I don't deal with much e-mail and don't want to deal with switching away from Outlook Express).
For those who ARE using Outlook Express (you probably don't want to admit it), simply go to View->Layout... and uncheck "show preview pane." Bada bing. Add that to applying the restricted attachment options on the security tab under Tools->Options and you're set. Until they find a way to embed the virus in headers, you'll be safe from e-mail viruses and you can go on using the [admittedly bad] Microsoft e-mail client.
Yes, I'm aware that they don't make money from the page views themselves - I'm not quite as stupid as you imply. But, the theory (it will be true or not based on many factors) is that the more people who are aware of the site and, presumably, who enjoy the free samples that most pay sites provide, the more people will subscribe to the service. Limiting themselves to only linking and advertising within their particular domain would reduce the number of potential customers they reach.
Again, there have been ways for porn sites to set themselves apart from the rest of the web for a long time and most haven't made the effort to do so. Otherwise, typing in "www.vivid.com" would lead me to a site OTHER than that of porn producer, Vivid Video (is there some reason they couldn't be "vividxxx.com" or even "vividvideo.com"?), and "www.whitehouse.com" would be either a site about a famous building or perhaps a home improvement company.
No, actually it's not in the adult sites' best interest. Just like any other for-profit web presence, they want as many page views as possible. If they really wanted to restrict access to adults only, they wouldn't buy misleading URL names, they would put the letters XXX in ALL of their URL names, they wouldn't sponsor pop-ups on non-adult sites, etc.
There's no way the porn industry would restrict themselves to a separate TLD, if for no other reason than it would make it far too easy to screen that domain and prevent access on any system.
The reason self-regulation has worked (to some extent - retailers need to get better about giving some support in terms of enforcement) in the video game industry is that they have a vested interest in alleviating parental concerns. If they ignore the concerns of parents, many of those adults are less likely to buy ANY video game for children, which constitutes a large part of their market. In the porn industry, they care less about the concerns of conservative parents because that's not their audience.
That's because it was originally called Sea Dogs 2 and Bethesda renamed it Pirates of the Caribbean (changing things only cosmetically) in a deal with Disney. So, Disney didn't have to contract with someone to build a game from scratch (a game was inevitable given the movie's popularity) and the game was released in a timely fashion (bugs and all), and Bethesda probably sold twice as many games as they would have without the tie-in.
There was indeed. And in the inexact style of the time (before GPS perfection). It made the first several games even more challenging, trying to figure out how the map matched up with the game all around the game's area. One (me) hopes that if they don't include a map with the game, they will at least include a "fog of war" present until you've actually been someplace.
If they didn't include aging in the game, it wouldn't be Pirates! anymore. One of the coolest features of the original was that, despite the open nature of the game, you were still battling time. The more you were wounded, the longer you took to get something done...These things gave the game a sense of time, and it needed that badly in order to enhance the challenge. In fact, you could argue that it was entire crux of the game. The goal was to retire as wealthy and happy as possible - wealthy defined [obviously] by one's booty and happy defined by good marriage and liberation of the family. I can't say how many times I ended up penniless because I pushed a crew too far and for too long...Awesome.:)
Satellite and cable companies CAN'T offer a la carte pricing because Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, etc. include provisions in their contracts describing where particular channels go in the channel order.
For example, let's say you have Disney Channel, TNT and FX in cable package A. Viacom comes along and will let you carry Nickleodeon but ONLY if you put it in the same package as the Disney Channel. Over time, this locks the packages in and neither the cable/satellite company nor the customer have any options apart from what the content providers want to give.
Short version: The system is so well established that it's perpetuating itself, and it's not going anywhere soon unless congress decides to step in - and that would NOT be a good thing overall.
Because a) prominently advertising how you get pushed around by content conglomerates doesn't inspire confidence and b) unnecessarily antagonizing companies you need by prominently advertising what assholes isn't very good for business.
I wouldn't worry too much about the channels being missing for an extended period of time. Despite the analysis that says that Dish Network is hurt worse than Viacom by cutting those channels, the truth is that it cuts a lot of potential viewers off from Viacom networks, and that can't help but affect their potential advertising rates.
Of course, this is less a problem here where we have pretty much every channel Dish offers (and don't watch even a tenth of them).:)
I'm a Dish Network customer, and while I'm disappointed that I could lose Comedy Central, I know where to place my anger. Dish Network seems to be the only provider that goes to any effort at all to keep rates down. Viacom is trying to frustrate that goal by forcing Echostar to add yet another damn channel (Nicktoons) and raise provider rates on channels that are already one-third (or more, counting overnight "paid programming") commercials. Those costs don't get paid by cable/satellite providers - they're paid by customers who get the costs passed on to them.
Go Charlie [Ergen, spiritual and actual leader of Dish Network]!
Specifically, Viacom is trying to force Dish to carry the "Nicktoons" channel, and is trying to get an increase in the rates that Echostar pays Viacom for the whole lineup. More details in this article.
I don't know jack about the rate increases and how fair they are, though I have to wonder how much extra commercial networks (ALL of the affected broadcast/cable channels have paid commercial advertising) should be expecting Dish Network and, by extension, their customers to pay for those channels. But the Nicktoons issue is a clear example of a media conglomerate using its consolidated power to force the purchase of something that the customer doesn't want.
The only thing that would really affect me (and deeply at that) is the loss of Comedy Central. But I'm willing to put up with that in the hopes that the little guy (Echostar) can put the big guy (Viacom) in his place.
Hell, they shouldn't even need the bloody warning in or on video games. If a parent has a child with epilepsy, that parent has a responsibility to be educated by DOCTORS. Any halfway decent neurologist would warn a parent and/or patient that certain types of epilepsy can cause one to have seizures based on particular visual cues/effects. That doctor would then go on to specifically talk about television given the fact that nearly every child spends time watching TV and/or playing video games.
As others have indicated, this is an excuse for people to try to get free money.
I should note that I, and others, are wrong on this, at least in the sense that EB would be considered a "pawn broker." Pawn brokers have specific laws applying to them because they act somewhat like a bank, giving what are, in essence, loans secured by the "pawned" merchandise. That customer has the right to come back within an agreed-upon length of time (not to be less than the waiting period defined by local/state law) and buy the item back, without fear that the shop will sell it to someone else. After the agreed-upon time period has elapsed, the pawn broker then has the right to sell the item to whomever wants to buy it.
EB, in its purchasing and reselling of video games, is acting as a secondhand store and are covered by non-pawn law. Of course, there are still laws that are supposed to prevent them from receiving and reselling stolen merchandise and, depending on the locale, there are laws that require waiting periods before reselling. But, they're not a pawn shop and not covered at all by specific pawn laws.
I hate admitting I'm wrong, but I am, so please disregard my first paragraph.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Nice enough"? How about "cheap enough"? Stuffing more content onto each DVD means reducing the data rates at which each hour of content is stored - like ripping MP3s (or your audio compressor of choice) at 128 kbps instead of 320. IMHO, they already push the quality envelope with 6-8 (half-hour) episodes of television shows on a DVD, especially if you're talking about live action instead of cartoon. Personally, I'd be much happier if companies would hold themselves to two hours of higher quality video per disc. Getting up to swap discs at that interval shouldn't be that physically demanding.
You're welcome to your opinion on this particular situation, but implying that greed is unique to America doesn't pass the smell test. The fact that Rupert Murdoch (lord and master of FOX) is an Australian possessed of legendary greed is proof by itself.
Am I the only one who owns a Gamecube but didn't go near the N64 for fear of paying US$70 for a new game?
Paper Mario will be as new to me as any other sequel to a N64 game.
Just an addendum to your note on the timing of the job cuts, I would note that the bulk of the people cut will be "sales associates" (read: "register monkeys"). I don't think it's that big a crisis losing a few minimum-wage (or nearly minimum) jobs. There's always an opening in a McDonald's or Burger King. In the long run, it's actually a good thing (even in the area of unemployment) since Gateway will, presumably, be a healthier company after the move.
Now I'm even dumber. I thought the [insane?] AC meant it was in one of the linked articles, but upon further review it appears I missed that link in the /. text. I'm sure a couple of people could do some damage to my karma by modding all three posts to -1. It's no less than I deserve, and I shall slink off in shame. But I'll still be happy. :) --God, I love ASCII.
Well, I didn't read the article before posting, so I'm a worthless sack of flesh for a completely different reason. Have a nice day!
Welcome to Excuseville. For the real reason Oddworld appeared exclusively on Xbox, please refer to this perfectly aged, smoky flavored Penny Arcade Classic.
If you see hundreds of posts about a bug on one forum, I believe you can multiply that number by a hundred, or even a thousand, to get the number of people who've actually experienced the bug. Hell, on a popular board you can multiply it by ten just to get the number of people who aren't bothering to post because there are already so many posts on the subject.
I understand the utility of a networked hard drive (and plan to go that direction for my next storage expansion). I'm only questioning the cost/benefit ratio of going wireless.
In short, unless there is a really good reason to want the wireless aspect, this enclosure is a monstrous waste of cash.
The price for the hardware isn't that bad, as you say. But what about the utility? How would this change my perception of storage? I've been sitting here trying hard to think of a utility for the wireless capability that isn't handled better wired. The only utility I can think of is in an already completely wireless setting where one is too cheap to dedicate a computer to file serving - a situation I would think is pretty rare. Of course, I have a hard time understanding why several computers in a fixed location would be connected via wireless in the first place when going wired is cheaper, faster and more secure. Maybe I'm losing my geekiness.
For those who ARE using Outlook Express (you probably don't want to admit it), simply go to View->Layout... and uncheck "show preview pane." Bada bing. Add that to applying the restricted attachment options on the security tab under Tools->Options and you're set. Until they find a way to embed the virus in headers, you'll be safe from e-mail viruses and you can go on using the [admittedly bad] Microsoft e-mail client.
Again, there have been ways for porn sites to set themselves apart from the rest of the web for a long time and most haven't made the effort to do so. Otherwise, typing in "www.vivid.com" would lead me to a site OTHER than that of porn producer, Vivid Video (is there some reason they couldn't be "vividxxx.com" or even "vividvideo.com"?), and "www.whitehouse.com" would be either a site about a famous building or perhaps a home improvement company.
There's no way the porn industry would restrict themselves to a separate TLD, if for no other reason than it would make it far too easy to screen that domain and prevent access on any system.
The reason self-regulation has worked (to some extent - retailers need to get better about giving some support in terms of enforcement) in the video game industry is that they have a vested interest in alleviating parental concerns. If they ignore the concerns of parents, many of those adults are less likely to buy ANY video game for children, which constitutes a large part of their market. In the porn industry, they care less about the concerns of conservative parents because that's not their audience.
That's because it was originally called Sea Dogs 2 and Bethesda renamed it Pirates of the Caribbean (changing things only cosmetically) in a deal with Disney. So, Disney didn't have to contract with someone to build a game from scratch (a game was inevitable given the movie's popularity) and the game was released in a timely fashion (bugs and all), and Bethesda probably sold twice as many games as they would have without the tie-in.
There was indeed. And in the inexact style of the time (before GPS perfection). It made the first several games even more challenging, trying to figure out how the map matched up with the game all around the game's area. One (me) hopes that if they don't include a map with the game, they will at least include a "fog of war" present until you've actually been someplace.
If they didn't include aging in the game, it wouldn't be Pirates! anymore. One of the coolest features of the original was that, despite the open nature of the game, you were still battling time. The more you were wounded, the longer you took to get something done...These things gave the game a sense of time, and it needed that badly in order to enhance the challenge. In fact, you could argue that it was entire crux of the game. The goal was to retire as wealthy and happy as possible - wealthy defined [obviously] by one's booty and happy defined by good marriage and liberation of the family. I can't say how many times I ended up penniless because I pushed a crew too far and for too long...Awesome. :)
For example, let's say you have Disney Channel, TNT and FX in cable package A. Viacom comes along and will let you carry Nickleodeon but ONLY if you put it in the same package as the Disney Channel. Over time, this locks the packages in and neither the cable/satellite company nor the customer have any options apart from what the content providers want to give.
Short version: The system is so well established that it's perpetuating itself, and it's not going anywhere soon unless congress decides to step in - and that would NOT be a good thing overall.
Because a) prominently advertising how you get pushed around by content conglomerates doesn't inspire confidence and b) unnecessarily antagonizing companies you need by prominently advertising what assholes isn't very good for business.
This is a cut&paste of my message from here.
Of course, this is less a problem here where we have pretty much every channel Dish offers (and don't watch even a tenth of them). :)
Go Charlie [Ergen, spiritual and actual leader of Dish Network]!
I don't know jack about the rate increases and how fair they are, though I have to wonder how much extra commercial networks (ALL of the affected broadcast/cable channels have paid commercial advertising) should be expecting Dish Network and, by extension, their customers to pay for those channels. But the Nicktoons issue is a clear example of a media conglomerate using its consolidated power to force the purchase of something that the customer doesn't want.
The only thing that would really affect me (and deeply at that) is the loss of Comedy Central. But I'm willing to put up with that in the hopes that the little guy (Echostar) can put the big guy (Viacom) in his place.
As others have indicated, this is an excuse for people to try to get free money.
EB, in its purchasing and reselling of video games, is acting as a secondhand store and are covered by non-pawn law. Of course, there are still laws that are supposed to prevent them from receiving and reselling stolen merchandise and, depending on the locale, there are laws that require waiting periods before reselling. But, they're not a pawn shop and not covered at all by specific pawn laws.
I hate admitting I'm wrong, but I am, so please disregard my first paragraph. :)