Hrm, it's different for me. I got my Xbox 360 in 2008, and back then it loaded the game on startup. I did change the setting a couple years ago because I use it for Netflix.
My empirical evidence is: Hazy but accurate.:)
Even if I'm wrong, you can just go into System Settings --> Startup and Shutdown --> Startup --> Disc to make it play from disc. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but seeing an ad once isn't going to give you AlzAIDScer. (though I just played D&D Daggerdale for PC all afternoon -- now that's something to nerdrage about...)
The thing is, the default setting if you have a disc (XBL gold or not) is for that disc to play. If that disc has multiplayer and you're logged into XBL, multiplayer just works -- you're not force fed advertisements at any time. Messages are primarily sent through the little Xbox-button menu which is usable both in and out of game. Achievements can be browsed this way as well, and friends can also be searched this way. No ads there either.
The point I'm trying to make is the Xbox Live landing page is typically for users who are looking for something else. It's not all that different than Google Play (I used the outdated name earlier) or App Store if you really think about user behavior. You pretend to spend $200-300 on a phone (in reality it's thousands over two years) and when you're looking for content, you're first shown featured content -- not a bland search screen or category listing. The console's core purpose of being a gaming device is no more compromised by the Xbox landing page than smartphones are by their respective market pages. I mean, it sucks that you can't go and put your Arcade games/indie games/netflix/whatever on the landing page, but I don't remember ever being able to.
If Silver members see the ads/featuring then it's really not all that bad. You can buy $1000 worth of content on the App Store and the featured content isn't going to change.
Not that anyone's claimed this, but I'm not a M$ employee, just an amateur devil's advocate.
There are ads that load in when you connect to PSN. However, most of those ads are for games/videos you can download from PSN.
Same thing goes for Xbox Live. I'm an XBL user and I didn't really notice the change that much, because it's no different than what Google is doing with Android Market and what Apple does with its iOS and Mac App Stores. The great majority of ads are for games or game trailers -- Microsoft is just honest about it. ("ADVERTISEMENT" is displayed by the ads)
The blanket term for this phenomenon is "featured content", and it is indeed a coveted piece of real estate on any platform.
Yeah, I pointed out processors being an exception, but you made a nice elaboration. But lets look at other areas (I'm on a ul/li kick today, anyway):
* RAM just shot up out of nowhere recently. The only thing that was holding it back was Windows' ability to handle it. That said, 32gb desktop RAM cost me about twice as much as 1gb laptop RAM 5-6? years ago, which is pretty close to Moore's...
* SSD's have been at Moore's or better for a few years. Shot up in the last year or so.
* HDD's still aren't slowing down
* Graphics cards are nearing the same walls as CPUs, but they are still growing with improved dedicated processing and the addition of physics processing.
* Non-optical removable media.
.
Other things that have really just matured too much to need improvement:
* Mice and keyboards. What's left to do?
* Optical drives -- I actually agree with Apple when they say they're trending out, and I don't often agree with Apple.
* Monitors: They're being held back by the industry push for making computers into media consumption devices, and the unreadiness of the TV/movie industries to support more standards. Business really held back industrial capability here.
.
That said, Moore's Law isn't dead yet.:) Like any rule of thumb, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Nice. I built a PC less than a month ago and I think Wirth's law is slowing down, which is why you can get away with that. Moore's Law, otoh, has kept pretty well -- power has stagnated in many areas recently (especially processor speed) but price is still going down. Aside from my ungodly fast desktop, I have an itty bitty $250 netbook (single core, atom processor, crap RAM) which I take everywhere and it gives me little grief.
I think some of the reasoning behind the change from the late 90's early 00's is:
* Software developers want to port to mobile platforms as well, which is forcing them to be more than efficient enough for the PC market.
* There are tons of great old programs that get the job done, and the average user is recognizing this.
* We're all nerds so we definitely recognize the above, probably using a lot of the same software we did 10-20 years ago.
* Weak laptops (like my itty bitty netbook) are still fairly popular...
I'm currently predicting 7 years for my custom, unless something really shakes the industry...
No pictures though. Doesn't NSFW require graphic pictures? (usually audio is even work-safe as most people use headphones, though I say "audio NSFW" just in case)
So you learned the 80/20 rule and you happen to be in the minority. Your questions are all irrelevant. Word of advice - if you want to stay employed, stop showing off, because your bosses will probably be in the 80%.
Agree and disagree with this. The bosses will probably love the OP, want to keep that person around. You're not going to have many friends though. The 20%ers seldom do.
With that, I'll add this note: Don't lose your passion for your job, but don't invest too much into the interpersonal side of office culture either. You're a natural workaholic so keep that up. But have balance. Find a reasonable place to draw the line and live for your weekends. (unless you truly think your bosses take such a shining to you that it could lead to rapid career advancement. [Problem is, you often need a ton of charisma.])
You're right, it doesn't, but the "I disagree" mod down is essentially like an AC replying with "I disagree because...", only more anonymous and without the "because" part. Just wanted to get my "reply" in properly because my first post sucked. (and there's subtlety to modding, like getting modded down now that I made this post would probably just be intentional instigation, which I'd ignore:P )
Also, I'm aware of the irony of posting on a message board...about avoiding wasted time. To me, wasted time is time spent doing something intermediary to my desired activity.
Welp, I don't normally respond to a cynical mod-down, but I'm dead serious with this one.
Lets face it, we all draw a line somewhere when we decide to attend something, right? I won't drive toward the beach (bay area) after 9am or so because that's when traffic becomes molasses, or stand in a long line for a slightly faster phone, or anything like that. Other people will. It takes a certain personality type to have the willingness to do so and I don't have it.
The intent of the above quip wasn't to disparage those who do, but I can only imagine that if I'm the impatient type who times recreational activity around minimal wasted time (traffic congestion, staring at loading bars, waiting in lines), those who are willing to do these things are either A. much more laid back, or I suppose... B. doing it for their kids. Maybe I should've mentioned that before.
In either case, a laid back person would think it's funny. A kid would think it's awesome. Kids haven't developed the sense of aesthetics needed to appreciate the rhythm and choreography behind the display -- they're just thinking "awesome, big explosion! Do it again!"
So if you're so pissed off by my statement that you feel the need to hit Underrated in the popdown, maybe you're not laid back enough for such recreational activity.:P
The people who think a fireworks display is worth all that wasted time would probably be fine with such a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, being laid back as they must be.
I think that would get your friends to turn on you like you were a dissident in North Korea.
I'm talking more about "I'm building a custom, here's some pics" or "I'm going to some meetup about Apple II's" or something. If you're lucky, you'll get one or two people on your list going "oh cool, I made my own gaming rig 6 months ago. There's a lan party regularly at..." or "I still keep my Apple II running. Where is this again?" with no consequences if those bites don't occur.
I have never once seen an ounce of hostility toward legal immigrants in my life
You're telling me you don't think a legally-emigrated Latino doesn't get lumped in with the illegal immigrant hate? You're telling me that middle-easterners don't get hate? Hell, there were Indian immigrants who were getting death threats shortly after 9/11.
Yeah, I'm starting to eat my words now. I really did mean more on a personal level. Yeah, I'm aware of the tensions in Los Angeles for example, much of the history of New York, etc. I've always avoided the big cities. Maybe that's critical to the immigrant situation -- there are plenty of immigrants in the suburbs and greater metropolitan areas, but everyone's far enough away from each other that they manage to be civil. (and thus they don't go fishing for reasons to hate)
I seriously don't get why people like big cities. Heh.
But away from that tangent, I do live in the bay area and I have seen H1B related hate...but that hate is directed at corporations, not individuals. I was in a mass layoff once with a company that went under, and they kept mostly people on visas around a month longer due to their complex situation, and to wrap up potential revenue builders. The discussions of the newly unemployed were entirely like "I hope [x] finds a job in time".
I have never once seen an ounce of hostility toward legal immigrants in my life. Is there really that much blurring going on between legal and illegal immigrants? There is a distinct difference, even though it tends to be left out of news reports. I bring this up because illegal immigration is the hot topic of the week and it seems like some slashdotters aren't picking up on the difference either.
Though I have heard that legal immigrants frequently get jerked around by the system. I've heard nothing but sympathy for this when it comes up in conversations with -only- other native born folks. (which means they're not being two-faced about it)
Social networks do have one good thing going for them that other forms of communication lack: you can drop hints related to your interests by posting about something you did, and hopefully get a "bite" from friends without fear of rejection.
"Everyone else" not so much. Even my 68 year old mother picked up on 1kb=1024 bytes very quickly. (I say this because people always claim "it isn't for you, it's for mom" when arguing against even the tiniest amount of complexity) It's really more those with a vested interest in reduced capacities who were pushing it -- basically drive manufacturers for the most part.
It wasn't mainstream until the late 90's early 00's. (I honestly forget when exactly I got burned, thus the need to "edit") Computing was around since way before the 90's anyway, so my "you can't change a dozen to 11" argument still applies. You can't change it to 13 either. Once a standard is established, make a new one -- don't mess with old ones.
That makes sense. After posting my "edit" I realized GlB wouldn't work because of Kilobyte. Heheh...
Though a new term needs to be short and minimally offputting, because saying "256metricGB" would get the same reaction. 256mGB or 256GmB maybe? 256GmB actually has some precedent because of 256GiB...
Yep, it's a refusal to accept MB/GB getting co-opted to not refer to 2^20/2^30 bytes. I was *mad* the when I got burned by that change in the early 00's, and I feel that companies can't change the old term to GiB to rip people off. (yes, I know there was IEEE backing, but you can't suddenly change "a dozen apples" to mean 11) There were even lawsuits about it which were pretty justified...
Frankly I think the new term should have received the new name, but I'm terrible at coming up with such names. Maybe in this case, 256GlB? (GiLoBytes, or Lower Gigabytes) It almost looks like a typo of GiB. Heh.
Yep, it's a refusal to accept MB/GB getting co-opted to not refer to 2^20/2^30 bytes. I was *mad* the when I got burned by that change in the late 00's, and I feel that companies can't change the old term to GiB to rip people off. (yes, I know there was IEEE backing, but you can't suddenly change "a dozen apples" to mean 11) There were even lawsuits about it which were pretty justified...
Frankly I think the new term should have received the new name, but I'm terrible at coming up with such names. Maybe in this case, 256GlB? (GiLoBytes, or Lower Gigabytes) It almost looks like a typo of GiB. Heh.
There are concerns that first generation SSDs fail after a couple thousand writes. There is a bit of controversy over it, and it may be FUD or just outdated re: modern SSDs, but operating systems and programs have come up with optimizations for SSDs, and users continue to come up with their own solutions.
I'm (just this week) building a custom and paid $180something per 256fakeGB drive on Newegg. (I'm sure someone will come along and shatter the price I'm bragging about.) A couple years ago the prices just didn't seem worth it -- something like $3-5/gb.
I'm actually glad this topic came up. I bought two SSDs and plan to install both Windows and Linux. On Linux it's easy to stick user data on the whirly drive I got, but with Windows I'm not sure how I'll be able to stick user data, system logs, etc on said drive. I might just stick the entire OS on the whirly drive and put games (since it's a gaming rig) for both OSes on my SSDs.
In terms of parents, it's actually quite refreshing to see something that deserves patenting for a change. I'm no fan of Sony and I feel patents need to expire sooner, but I do appreciate the hard research and development put into this one. Not the idiot software patents like "slightly different list scrolling behavior" that we typically see.
Instead of doing the impossible tasks of charging people for seeds in developing countries, they should just accept the loss and focus on making a profit on selling them RoundUp.
I thought this too after dancing with some AC's earlier today. My best guess is that something is preventing them from doing so -- maybe there's just nothing preventing a generic RoundUp from being sold at this point?
Yep! From wikipedia:
Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule in the 1970s, and marketed Roundup from 1973. It retained exclusive rights in the US until its US patent expired in September, 2000, and maintained a predominant marketshare in countries where the patent expired earlier.
So yeah, we're paying for their bad business decisions. Couldn't come up with some other herbicide to work around, huh...
Slashdot Mirror
Hrm, it's different for me. I got my Xbox 360 in 2008, and back then it loaded the game on startup. I did change the setting a couple years ago because I use it for Netflix.
:)
My empirical evidence is: Hazy but accurate.
Even if I'm wrong, you can just go into System Settings --> Startup and Shutdown --> Startup --> Disc to make it play from disc. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but seeing an ad once isn't going to give you AlzAIDScer. (though I just played D&D Daggerdale for PC all afternoon -- now that's something to nerdrage about...)
The thing is, the default setting if you have a disc (XBL gold or not) is for that disc to play. If that disc has multiplayer and you're logged into XBL, multiplayer just works -- you're not force fed advertisements at any time. Messages are primarily sent through the little Xbox-button menu which is usable both in and out of game. Achievements can be browsed this way as well, and friends can also be searched this way. No ads there either.
The point I'm trying to make is the Xbox Live landing page is typically for users who are looking for something else. It's not all that different than Google Play (I used the outdated name earlier) or App Store if you really think about user behavior. You pretend to spend $200-300 on a phone (in reality it's thousands over two years) and when you're looking for content, you're first shown featured content -- not a bland search screen or category listing. The console's core purpose of being a gaming device is no more compromised by the Xbox landing page than smartphones are by their respective market pages. I mean, it sucks that you can't go and put your Arcade games/indie games/netflix/whatever on the landing page, but I don't remember ever being able to.
If Silver members see the ads/featuring then it's really not all that bad. You can buy $1000 worth of content on the App Store and the featured content isn't going to change.
Not that anyone's claimed this, but I'm not a M$ employee, just an amateur devil's advocate.
There are ads that load in when you connect to PSN. However, most of those ads are for games/videos you can download from PSN.
Same thing goes for Xbox Live. I'm an XBL user and I didn't really notice the change that much, because it's no different than what Google is doing with Android Market and what Apple does with its iOS and Mac App Stores. The great majority of ads are for games or game trailers -- Microsoft is just honest about it. ("ADVERTISEMENT" is displayed by the ads)
The blanket term for this phenomenon is "featured content", and it is indeed a coveted piece of real estate on any platform.
Yeah, I pointed out processors being an exception, but you made a nice elaboration. But lets look at other areas (I'm on a ul/li kick today, anyway):
.
Other things that have really just matured too much to need improvement:
.
That said, Moore's Law isn't dead yet. :) Like any rule of thumb, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
I think some of the reasoning behind the change from the late 90's early 00's is:
I'm currently predicting 7 years for my custom, unless something really shakes the industry...
No pictures though. Doesn't NSFW require graphic pictures? (usually audio is even work-safe as most people use headphones, though I say "audio NSFW" just in case)
So you learned the 80/20 rule and you happen to be in the minority. Your questions are all irrelevant. Word of advice - if you want to stay employed, stop showing off, because your bosses will probably be in the 80%.
Agree and disagree with this. The bosses will probably love the OP, want to keep that person around. You're not going to have many friends though. The 20%ers seldom do.
With that, I'll add this note: Don't lose your passion for your job, but don't invest too much into the interpersonal side of office culture either. You're a natural workaholic so keep that up. But have balance. Find a reasonable place to draw the line and live for your weekends. (unless you truly think your bosses take such a shining to you that it could lead to rapid career advancement. [Problem is, you often need a ton of charisma.])
Yeah, I kicked myself shortly after posting -- after having proofread it (for once), I got it backwards.
But to keep it somewhat on topic, that's why we need an edit function -- for impatient types like me.
You're right, it doesn't, but the "I disagree" mod down is essentially like an AC replying with "I disagree because...", only more anonymous and without the "because" part. Just wanted to get my "reply" in properly because my first post sucked. (and there's subtlety to modding, like getting modded down now that I made this post would probably just be intentional instigation, which I'd ignore :P )
Also, I'm aware of the irony of posting on a message board...about avoiding wasted time. To me, wasted time is time spent doing something intermediary to my desired activity.
Welp, I don't normally respond to a cynical mod-down, but I'm dead serious with this one.
:P
Lets face it, we all draw a line somewhere when we decide to attend something, right? I won't drive toward the beach (bay area) after 9am or so because that's when traffic becomes molasses, or stand in a long line for a slightly faster phone, or anything like that. Other people will. It takes a certain personality type to have the willingness to do so and I don't have it.
The intent of the above quip wasn't to disparage those who do, but I can only imagine that if I'm the impatient type who times recreational activity around minimal wasted time (traffic congestion, staring at loading bars, waiting in lines), those who are willing to do these things are either
A. much more laid back, or I suppose...
B. doing it for their kids. Maybe I should've mentioned that before.
In either case, a laid back person would think it's funny. A kid would think it's awesome. Kids haven't developed the sense of aesthetics needed to appreciate the rhythm and choreography behind the display -- they're just thinking "awesome, big explosion! Do it again!"
So if you're so pissed off by my statement that you feel the need to hit Underrated in the popdown, maybe you're not laid back enough for such recreational activity.
The people who think a fireworks display is worth all that wasted time would probably be fine with such a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, being laid back as they must be.
Which is why we so desperately need to fund space research. It's the only way to get away from Facebook.
I think that would get your friends to turn on you like you were a dissident in North Korea.
I'm talking more about "I'm building a custom, here's some pics" or "I'm going to some meetup about Apple II's" or something. If you're lucky, you'll get one or two people on your list going "oh cool, I made my own gaming rig 6 months ago. There's a lan party regularly at..." or "I still keep my Apple II running. Where is this again?" with no consequences if those bites don't occur.
I have never once seen an ounce of hostility toward legal immigrants in my life
You're telling me you don't think a legally-emigrated Latino doesn't get lumped in with the illegal immigrant hate? You're telling me that middle-easterners don't get hate? Hell, there were Indian immigrants who were getting death threats shortly after 9/11.
Yeah, I'm starting to eat my words now. I really did mean more on a personal level. Yeah, I'm aware of the tensions in Los Angeles for example, much of the history of New York, etc. I've always avoided the big cities. Maybe that's critical to the immigrant situation -- there are plenty of immigrants in the suburbs and greater metropolitan areas, but everyone's far enough away from each other that they manage to be civil. (and thus they don't go fishing for reasons to hate)
I seriously don't get why people like big cities. Heh.
But away from that tangent, I do live in the bay area and I have seen H1B related hate...but that hate is directed at corporations, not individuals. I was in a mass layoff once with a company that went under, and they kept mostly people on visas around a month longer due to their complex situation, and to wrap up potential revenue builders. The discussions of the newly unemployed were entirely like "I hope [x] finds a job in time".
I have never once seen an ounce of hostility toward legal immigrants in my life. Is there really that much blurring going on between legal and illegal immigrants? There is a distinct difference, even though it tends to be left out of news reports. I bring this up because illegal immigration is the hot topic of the week and it seems like some slashdotters aren't picking up on the difference either.
Though I have heard that legal immigrants frequently get jerked around by the system. I've heard nothing but sympathy for this when it comes up in conversations with -only- other native born folks. (which means they're not being two-faced about it)
Social networks do have one good thing going for them that other forms of communication lack: you can drop hints related to your interests by posting about something you did, and hopefully get a "bite" from friends without fear of rejection.
No, it's actually a refusal by everyone else
"Everyone else" not so much. Even my 68 year old mother picked up on 1kb=1024 bytes very quickly. (I say this because people always claim "it isn't for you, it's for mom" when arguing against even the tiniest amount of complexity) It's really more those with a vested interest in reduced capacities who were pushing it -- basically drive manufacturers for the most part.
It wasn't mainstream until the late 90's early 00's. (I honestly forget when exactly I got burned, thus the need to "edit") Computing was around since way before the 90's anyway, so my "you can't change a dozen to 11" argument still applies. You can't change it to 13 either. Once a standard is established, make a new one -- don't mess with old ones.
That makes sense. After posting my "edit" I realized GlB wouldn't work because of Kilobyte. Heheh...
Though a new term needs to be short and minimally offputting, because saying "256metricGB" would get the same reaction. 256mGB or 256GmB maybe? 256GmB actually has some precedent because of 256GiB...
Yep, it's a refusal to accept MB/GB getting co-opted to not refer to 2^20/2^30 bytes. I was *mad* the when I got burned by that change in the early 00's, and I feel that companies can't change the old term to GiB to rip people off. (yes, I know there was IEEE backing, but you can't suddenly change "a dozen apples" to mean 11) There were even lawsuits about it which were pretty justified...
Frankly I think the new term should have received the new name, but I'm terrible at coming up with such names. Maybe in this case, 256GlB? (GiLoBytes, or Lower Gigabytes) It almost looks like a typo of GiB. Heh.
Love the new edit function.
Yep, it's a refusal to accept MB/GB getting co-opted to not refer to 2^20/2^30 bytes. I was *mad* the when I got burned by that change in the late 00's, and I feel that companies can't change the old term to GiB to rip people off. (yes, I know there was IEEE backing, but you can't suddenly change "a dozen apples" to mean 11) There were even lawsuits about it which were pretty justified...
Frankly I think the new term should have received the new name, but I'm terrible at coming up with such names. Maybe in this case, 256GlB? (GiLoBytes, or Lower Gigabytes) It almost looks like a typo of GiB. Heh.
There are concerns that first generation SSDs fail after a couple thousand writes. There is a bit of controversy over it, and it may be FUD or just outdated re: modern SSDs, but operating systems and programs have come up with optimizations for SSDs, and users continue to come up with their own solutions.
I'm (just this week) building a custom and paid $180something per 256fakeGB drive on Newegg. (I'm sure someone will come along and shatter the price I'm bragging about.) A couple years ago the prices just didn't seem worth it -- something like $3-5/gb.
I'm actually glad this topic came up. I bought two SSDs and plan to install both Windows and Linux. On Linux it's easy to stick user data on the whirly drive I got, but with Windows I'm not sure how I'll be able to stick user data, system logs, etc on said drive. I might just stick the entire OS on the whirly drive and put games (since it's a gaming rig) for both OSes on my SSDs.
In terms of parents, it's actually quite refreshing to see something that deserves patenting for a change. I'm no fan of Sony and I feel patents need to expire sooner, but I do appreciate the hard research and development put into this one. Not the idiot software patents like "slightly different list scrolling behavior" that we typically see.
Instead of doing the impossible tasks of charging people for seeds in developing countries, they should just accept the loss and focus on making a profit on selling them RoundUp.
I thought this too after dancing with some AC's earlier today. My best guess is that something is preventing them from doing so -- maybe there's just nothing preventing a generic RoundUp from being sold at this point?
Yep! From wikipedia:
Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule in the 1970s, and marketed Roundup from 1973. It retained exclusive rights in the US until its US patent expired in September, 2000, and maintained a predominant marketshare in countries where the patent expired earlier.
So yeah, we're paying for their bad business decisions. Couldn't come up with some other herbicide to work around, huh...
Be it as it may, I was chuckling throughout the entire discussion. I'm not exactly a farmer or anything, after all.
I'm no mastermind, but at least I'm jovial.