Microsoft is always bad, and always will be... that they occasionally (and largely by accident) do something good doesn't make the organization any less bad.
What about Google then? I don't see Google open-sourcing their search engine, GMail interface, or any of their other major tools and yet they're held as the epitome of a "good" company. All of their stuff is proprietary and kept very closed-source. Wait, you want them to release their search engine code for free?
That's like asking Microsoft to release Office source code for free.
iTunes Music store. Billions of dollars worth of music sold. Credit card companies charge fixed percentages. a $.99 charge costs $0.02 for the transaction.
Also the xbox live credits aren't full dollar amounts either. So you can't get a one-one price ratio. MSFT did this to appear to be cheaper when they really aren't.
This is only about MSFT greed and nothing more. MSFT can collect interest on your money sitting in their bank accounts while you try and figure out a way to spend it. I see the whole fiasco as very similar to gift cards. What a scam.
Yes that's why I said two weeks ago; which is the last time I checked ebay, which was the last time there was one of these Wii want our Wii threads. In 30 seconds of browsing I found 3 Wii's NIB without extras for $250+ $30 shipping. So again, just do your shopping ahead of time and plan for this stuff. It's not rocket science that if something is in demand now, and Christmas is coming up, it's not going to get easier to find one.
Re:Couple Thoughts
on
Where are Wii?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Guys its really not a big deal. It's a video game system. I hate it when people say things like this, but if a 15-20% extra cost is enough to keep you from buying a console that only costs perhaps 1% of the average US household income, that you supposedly want so badly, badly enough to fuss on the internet about, then you probably don't need to be buying it in the first place, and don't need to be trolling the internet about it either. The time you saved not standing outside the store when the console launched, the time you chose to spend working or with your family or something, was the price of that Wii you want oh-so-badly. Everything has a price, and the fussers made their decision. But they want to have their cake, and eat it too, and are angry they can't. This is the real sad story, not that people are smart investors.
So the people that didn't want to spend 4 hours outside Gamestop on launch morning could have spent 4 hours investigating a smart stock to purchase, such as an Asian index fund (most of which are making 20+%/year). Take that $250 you stashed away a year ago when you knew the Wii was coming out, that you were planning on spending on a Wii, and stick it in that index fund (as soon as you knew you wanted to buy the Wii), make your 20%, and pay the 20% premium is currently costs to get a Wii off the people who are calling the stores and standing outside to buy Wii's to resell. If you don't like the chance of losing money on the stock market, then honestly you should have come up with a different idea or just gone out to the store and waited a couple hours to buy the darn console. You don't have control over losing money on the stock market, but you do have control over getting yourself a Wii. If that chance is in danger, just plan to show up earlier until that danger goes away.
So basically what I'm saying is everybody that wanted a Wii had a chance to get one, and the people that want one still and don't have one made their opportunity cost decision to spend time at work/asleep when they could have been out to get the Wii, and now that they're unhappy the only real person/thing they can legitimately be angry with/about is themselves for not making the right decision that they knew they should have. Besides, there are much more important things in life to spend time contemplating about than not having a Wii, such as what you could be doing differently at home so that you don't have the headache again this year you got last year on December 25 when your child found out he doesn't have his Wii; or why an extra $30 is so out of your budget that you suddenly can't afford a Wii. Seriously, just go do some manual labor or work at McD for 8hr * $5.15 to make up the premium to having a Wii! Yes, working at McD sucks, much more than standing in line with some friends at 4am to buy a console. Yes, I worked at McD for a year a worked manual labor for several months, so I'm not just saying it; I'm just giving an example of a very simple, no commitment way of making up the extra $30 that I saw Wii's cost on ebay just a few weeks ago.
I know that this is something I'd use. Props to Google for trying to make the user experience a bit better. I've wanted this for some time, but it's not all cherries and berries.
Imagine the hooplah we'd get over controversial topics. Like religion.
My friend's mashup band listed there and you can download the songs in 192kbps Mp3. If you register, you can download the karma songs for free to check out the bands.
http://payplay.ca/harveyrocks is the website for my friend's band; I'd highly recommend you download that free Backlight song; its honestly one of my favorite songs of all time. The rest of the album is more of the same quality stuff.
If you're buying a laptop because it has this graphics chip, battery life is secondary to frames per second. The people that are buying these laptops buy them because they're suited for playing games anywhere while plugged in, not traveling and off site work. I'd like to second this. I thought I would be chiefly concerned about battery life, so I payed extra for the 12-cell battery, that when I undervolted my CPU, gave me 6.5h of laptop time.
Later I realized, its only about once/year that I actually make use of that time. All other times I have an outlet nearby.
Note the weight of the 12 cell ~ weight of 6-cell + charger.
And I was stuck with a laptop that played wow on lowest settings at 8fps.
Now, I would go for the compact-ish laptop (and try to keep it light), but I would definitely go for some graphics horsepower; because the times when I'm at a friends house over Christmas and we want to frag are far more often than the very few times I'm not near a power outlet.
I really don't see where the need to overclock comes from anymore.
You seem to be looking at it from a non gaming perspective. Considering the article is about a gaming system that seems to be a bit off topic as far as viewpoints go. Also, I think it is popular among poor people because you can spend $80 on a processor and overclock to a processor worth triple that. See the Intel E2180 for example. For me as a college student this is great.
I think this is a better way to attack this, someone who is hosting legal bittorrent files needs to step up and sue comcast for forgery. there is no reason why creating a fake packet with my mac and ip and sending it to someone to cause them to drop my connection should be legally treated any differently than making a fake check with my banks watermark and my signature and using it to get a teller to give you my money. this cognitive disconnect between how the internet and everything else are treated absolutely astounds me. Most of the sort of people using bittorrent to host legal content do not have the resources to spend on a lawsuit. If they did they would probably just be hosting the content themselves. With a company like Blizzard, Comcast would have a bit much to lose so they would fight it, which would drive up the cost for Blizzard, and the shareholders would not approve. So Blizzard would just start hosting the content if worst came to worst rather than spend millions on a big lawsuit.
This is a matter of national security. If the terrorists know what is going on in G-bay then they can be trained to prepare for the torturing and other techniques used there. If they are trained to expect what is coming then they will be less likely to give up information when we try to torture it out of them. American lives are at stake. How dare you even mention the government doesn't have our best interests in mind. If you are not with the American lives, then you are against them, and therefor a terrorist. Please come with me for your own protection.
I think your forgetting the population that thinks jumping on bandwagons is fun Well what else am I supposed to define myself as? I have no personality!
With the advent of PVR's and increasingly sofisticated adblocking software as well as do not call lists, there is a growing trend that people are sick to death of all the advertising in their lives.
the world is fucking saturated in the stuff, and something has to give.
I know i'm personally sick to death of mobile phone dating scams and panty liner ads being marketed to me on TV.
When I'm biking at the gym I actually prefer the commercials. On minute 15 out of 22 biking with simulated uphill resistance, the time starts to go _quite_ slowly. Or seems to, at least.
Many of the commercials are an attempt to capture as much interest, emotion, and attention as possible within 30 seconds. Many of the television shows or movies played do not strive for that. Take an episode of 24 for example. Crazy stuff happens in the first 11 minutes, then the next 20 are boring filler emotional moments courtesy Cloe, and then the last 11 minutes are them setting up for the crazy stuff to get you to tune in next week.
So, when watching the commercials, the time goes much faster. I would actually prefer a channel with nothing but commercials for the biking period.
Regardless, it's been Slashdotted, and even if the nothing moves on the moon, it's more interesting to me than the trees outside and that oblong piece of leather people throw at eachother.
I think a new meme needs to be added to the usual. Example:
"But where is the torrent?"
Seriously, if there were ever a better reason for a torrent than a high definition video of the moon.
I do remember a time when I would talk on and on about computers in everybody's household - and get blank stares. Com-pew--ter? I suspect the current generation of kids will embrace anthropomorphised(sic) robots in about ten-twenty years; but more likely we will see a gradual introduction of small, robot cars. Just speculation, I haven't any magic crystal ball-but I was right about computers!:) I think there's a lot of us out there right now willing to embrace anthropomorphised robots.
Seriously though, this is GREAT NEWS! Think about this for a minute- While we tinker away all day and night coding out the new big thing with SQL, integrating modules into programs, and screaming at your computer monitor because of incompetent customers.... These kids sit around playing WoW.
They are our stepping stones! They are the ones we can use to move forward in life. They are our next generation of fast food servers ready to take our orders! This thrills me, it means more and more people are too sucked into a game than to become competition for my job and power. Let them rot away in front of a computer playing games..... It gives me an edge. Call me an asshole, but remember It takes drive to make it to the top. I've been at Georgia Tech for over 2 years now and play World of Warcraft. I'm living proof you can waste time and get along in life!
Warriors getting buffed again (no, Mace nerf is not meaningful. Intercept buff is.) so Kalgan can rock his Season 3's.
You may see this as a troll post, but Blizzard has been clear with their actions they're not interested in class balance, only in buffing (making stronger) the classes that the dev's mainly play. For those uninformed, Kalgan is the head designer/game balancer, and his current favorite class is Warrior.
To all potential WoWers, don't bother picking it up; just wait out Warhammer or something. Players are leaving in droves over this: in all the brackets of Arena PvP (main form of PvP Blizzard tries to balance around) Warriors are overrepresented. For instance, of the top 10 2v2 teams, 8 of them have Warriors. Top 10 rated 5v5 teams, 7 or 8 [don't recall] have warriors. Contrast this with the class most whined about for being overpowered, Warlocks, which have a strong showing in the 2v2 bracket (indeed they're the only thing keeping Warriors in check, and they're getting a serious nerf vs. specifically Warriors in 2.3), but fairly weak showing in the 5v5 bracket (most important bracket) being made weaker and/or not buffed in patch 2.3 like all other classes are, and you'll see just how far away from the game Blizzard has fallen. They've got some serious balancing to do if they want to stay relevant.
The last numbers from Armory mining show only 4.5m CHARACTERS across all realms and regions (EU, US, etc). That means since Armory was implemented (last couple of months) only 4.5m characters have logged on. In reality the number of active accounts would be lower. But at any rate, 4.5m is a far cry from Blizzard's 9million trumpet they like to blow to keep Vivendi shareholders happy with the Blizzard purchase.
For those only interested in PvE, it's not looking to good on that front either. If Zul'Aman is similar to Kara, there won't be many guilds progressing past it either.
Blizzard needs to keep in mind the vocal minority is not the gold pot majority.
What if bittorrent _required_ you to share what you download? IE, it would send you one pack/part of the file, but would _not_ send you _any_ more until the tracker had found out from someone else that they had _your_ part of file that had been sent to you. So basically you would not get anything more beyond the first package until you had uploaded that package to someone else.
This would require the RI/MPAA to share some to find out if we had been downloading, which would be great evidence in court that it was ok to download it. "They were sharing it; who am I to argue? All this copyright mumbo jumbo is too complicated; their IP range was sharing, so I assumed they wanted to share it".
You could even make that decision client side so the user could decide if they wanted to favor security over speed.
Then you could say "the only way they could have known that I was uploading that actual file was if somewhere along the line they shared a full copy of it."
Slashdot Mirror
Check out Treewave; this guy uses a Commodore 64 and printer head moving back and forth to make his music.
Sleep.mp3
There's another song available free; also at treewave.com
-Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
-Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.
What about Google then? I don't see Google open-sourcing their search engine, GMail interface, or any of their other major tools and yet they're held as the epitome of a "good" company. All of their stuff is proprietary and kept very closed-source. Wait, you want them to release their search engine code for free?
That's like asking Microsoft to release Office source code for free.
What a troll.
iTunes Music store. Billions of dollars worth of music sold. Credit card companies charge fixed percentages. a $.99 charge costs $0.02 for the transaction.
Also the xbox live credits aren't full dollar amounts either. So you can't get a one-one price ratio. MSFT did this to appear to be cheaper when they really aren't.
This is only about MSFT greed and nothing more. MSFT can collect interest on your money sitting in their bank accounts while you try and figure out a way to spend it. I see the whole fiasco as very similar to gift cards. What a scam.
Yes that's why I said two weeks ago; which is the last time I checked ebay, which was the last time there was one of these Wii want our Wii threads. In 30 seconds of browsing I found 3 Wii's NIB without extras for $250+ $30 shipping. So again, just do your shopping ahead of time and plan for this stuff. It's not rocket science that if something is in demand now, and Christmas is coming up, it's not going to get easier to find one.
Guys its really not a big deal. It's a video game system. I hate it when people say things like this, but if a 15-20% extra cost is enough to keep you from buying a console that only costs perhaps 1% of the average US household income, that you supposedly want so badly, badly enough to fuss on the internet about, then you probably don't need to be buying it in the first place, and don't need to be trolling the internet about it either. The time you saved not standing outside the store when the console launched, the time you chose to spend working or with your family or something, was the price of that Wii you want oh-so-badly. Everything has a price, and the fussers made their decision. But they want to have their cake, and eat it too, and are angry they can't. This is the real sad story, not that people are smart investors.
So the people that didn't want to spend 4 hours outside Gamestop on launch morning could have spent 4 hours investigating a smart stock to purchase, such as an Asian index fund (most of which are making 20+%/year). Take that $250 you stashed away a year ago when you knew the Wii was coming out, that you were planning on spending on a Wii, and stick it in that index fund (as soon as you knew you wanted to buy the Wii), make your 20%, and pay the 20% premium is currently costs to get a Wii off the people who are calling the stores and standing outside to buy Wii's to resell. If you don't like the chance of losing money on the stock market, then honestly you should have come up with a different idea or just gone out to the store and waited a couple hours to buy the darn console. You don't have control over losing money on the stock market, but you do have control over getting yourself a Wii. If that chance is in danger, just plan to show up earlier until that danger goes away.
So basically what I'm saying is everybody that wanted a Wii had a chance to get one, and the people that want one still and don't have one made their opportunity cost decision to spend time at work/asleep when they could have been out to get the Wii, and now that they're unhappy the only real person/thing they can legitimately be angry with/about is themselves for not making the right decision that they knew they should have. Besides, there are much more important things in life to spend time contemplating about than not having a Wii, such as what you could be doing differently at home so that you don't have the headache again this year you got last year on December 25 when your child found out he doesn't have his Wii; or why an extra $30 is so out of your budget that you suddenly can't afford a Wii. Seriously, just go do some manual labor or work at McD for 8hr * $5.15 to make up the premium to having a Wii! Yes, working at McD sucks, much more than standing in line with some friends at 4am to buy a console. Yes, I worked at McD for a year a worked manual labor for several months, so I'm not just saying it; I'm just giving an example of a very simple, no commitment way of making up the extra $30 that I saw Wii's cost on ebay just a few weeks ago.
Gosh its nice to see some non fuzzy maths that actually mean something.
You could just buy one off ebay for $30 more. There're plenty NIB Wii's going for $250+~$30 shipping. Not shabby.
Imagine the hooplah we'd get over controversial topics. Like religion.
I like payplay.
My friend's mashup band listed there and you can download the songs in 192kbps Mp3. If you register, you can download the karma songs for free to check out the bands.
http://payplay.ca/harveyrocks is the website for my friend's band; I'd highly recommend you download that free Backlight song; its honestly one of my favorite songs of all time. The rest of the album is more of the same quality stuff.
Later I realized, its only about once/year that I actually make use of that time. All other times I have an outlet nearby.
Note the weight of the 12 cell ~ weight of 6-cell + charger.
And I was stuck with a laptop that played wow on lowest settings at 8fps.
Now, I would go for the compact-ish laptop (and try to keep it light), but I would definitely go for some graphics horsepower; because the times when I'm at a friends house over Christmas and we want to frag are far more often than the very few times I'm not near a power outlet.
You seem to be looking at it from a non gaming perspective. Considering the article is about a gaming system that seems to be a bit off topic as far as viewpoints go. Also, I think it is popular among poor people because you can spend $80 on a processor and overclock to a processor worth triple that. See the Intel E2180 for example. For me as a college student this is great.
and this is why we are not ready for cloning
How dare you say such a thing.
This is a matter of national security. If the terrorists know what is going on in G-bay then they can be trained to prepare for the torturing and other techniques used there. If they are trained to expect what is coming then they will be less likely to give up information when we try to torture it out of them. American lives are at stake. How dare you even mention the government doesn't have our best interests in mind. If you are not with the American lives, then you are against them, and therefor a terrorist. Please come with me for your own protection.
My mod points! MWahhahahaA!!
Oh wait....
O look A&F has a shirt sale today.
the world is fucking saturated in the stuff, and something has to give.
When I'm biking at the gym I actually prefer the commercials. On minute 15 out of 22 biking with simulated uphill resistance, the time starts to go _quite_ slowly. Or seems to, at least.I know i'm personally sick to death of mobile phone dating scams and panty liner ads being marketed to me on TV.
Many of the commercials are an attempt to capture as much interest, emotion, and attention as possible within 30 seconds. Many of the television shows or movies played do not strive for that. Take an episode of 24 for example. Crazy stuff happens in the first 11 minutes, then the next 20 are boring filler emotional moments courtesy Cloe, and then the last 11 minutes are them setting up for the crazy stuff to get you to tune in next week.
So, when watching the commercials, the time goes much faster. I would actually prefer a channel with nothing but commercials for the biking period.
LOL.
Regardless, it's been Slashdotted, and even if the nothing moves on the moon, it's more interesting to me than the trees outside and that oblong piece of leather people throw at eachother.
I think a new meme needs to be added to the usual. Example:
"But where is the torrent?"
Seriously, if there were ever a better reason for a torrent than a high definition video of the moon.
While we tinker away all day and night coding out the new big thing with SQL, integrating modules into programs, and screaming at your computer monitor because of incompetent customers.... These kids sit around playing WoW.
They are our stepping stones! They are the ones we can use to move forward in life. They are our next generation of fast food servers ready to take our orders! This thrills me, it means more and more people are too sucked into a game than to become competition for my job and power. Let them rot away in front of a computer playing games..... It gives me an edge. Call me an asshole, but remember It takes drive to make it to the top. I've been at Georgia Tech for over 2 years now and play World of Warcraft. I'm living proof you can waste time and get along in life!
Nothing special in 2.3...
Warriors getting buffed again (no, Mace nerf is not meaningful. Intercept buff is.) so Kalgan can rock his Season 3's.
You may see this as a troll post, but Blizzard has been clear with their actions they're not interested in class balance, only in buffing (making stronger) the classes that the dev's mainly play. For those uninformed, Kalgan is the head designer/game balancer, and his current favorite class is Warrior.
To all potential WoWers, don't bother picking it up; just wait out Warhammer or something. Players are leaving in droves over this: in all the brackets of Arena PvP (main form of PvP Blizzard tries to balance around) Warriors are overrepresented. For instance, of the top 10 2v2 teams, 8 of them have Warriors. Top 10 rated 5v5 teams, 7 or 8 [don't recall] have warriors. Contrast this with the class most whined about for being overpowered, Warlocks, which have a strong showing in the 2v2 bracket (indeed they're the only thing keeping Warriors in check, and they're getting a serious nerf vs. specifically Warriors in 2.3), but fairly weak showing in the 5v5 bracket (most important bracket) being made weaker and/or not buffed in patch 2.3 like all other classes are, and you'll see just how far away from the game Blizzard has fallen. They've got some serious balancing to do if they want to stay relevant.
The last numbers from Armory mining show only 4.5m CHARACTERS across all realms and regions (EU, US, etc). That means since Armory was implemented (last couple of months) only 4.5m characters have logged on. In reality the number of active accounts would be lower. But at any rate, 4.5m is a far cry from Blizzard's 9million trumpet they like to blow to keep Vivendi shareholders happy with the Blizzard purchase.
For those only interested in PvE, it's not looking to good on that front either. If Zul'Aman is similar to Kara, there won't be many guilds progressing past it either.
Blizzard needs to keep in mind the vocal minority is not the gold pot majority.
This just gave me a thought--
What if bittorrent _required_ you to share what you download? IE, it would send you one pack/part of the file, but would _not_ send you _any_ more until the tracker had found out from someone else that they had _your_ part of file that had been sent to you. So basically you would not get anything more beyond the first package until you had uploaded that package to someone else.
This would require the RI/MPAA to share some to find out if we had been downloading, which would be great evidence in court that it was ok to download it. "They were sharing it; who am I to argue? All this copyright mumbo jumbo is too complicated; their IP range was sharing, so I assumed they wanted to share it".
You could even make that decision client side so the user could decide if they wanted to favor security over speed.
Then you could say "the only way they could have known that I was uploading that actual file was if somewhere along the line they shared a full copy of it."
I would prefer Ron Paul. He has a track record of voting against these things. The democrats? They could be doing things now but they're not.