To me, this is an excellent example of what goes wrong without Net Neutrality. Wikipedia: I can understand and agree with paying to float data caps to share their information. However, Facebook and Google (and any other company using "zero rating") are abusing their power. If a true Facebook or Google competitor could be built within these countries natively, they would be at a severe disadvantage because of the superpowers they're going up against. I don't think that is disputable. The trouble is how to vet the "Wikipedias" that the public could greatly benefit from and the "Facebooks and Googles" that are using their money to have an unfair advantage over competition?
I am not surprised at all that the hotels kicked em to the curb. Makes sense, you have a bunch of techies that do not gamble like other conventioneers do, CES makes money (and continues to beable to have the CES because of the income), and no offense to the small players, but if you can't pay/are unwilling to pay to get on the floor, then perhaps you don't belong at CES.
From the Hotel's perspective, the removal makes complete sense. CES is bringing in money to them, paying them to have X amount of floor space, which X floor space would be larger if these small players paid to be on the floor, and are instead paying for just a room.
Which sounds more likely in Vegas: CES is really upset not to have the money and asks the small player(s) to be removed, or the Hotel is upset enough to ask them to leave because they're not making the extra money. I'm going with the latter. Vegas hotels will say one thing and then change their mind, or the front of the hotel person was incorrect on the "restrictions" (possibly even using tricky wording to think they have the freedom to have their displays in their room). My money is totally on hotel management getting wind of it and taking it upon themselves to "solve" the situation.
Higher performing parts have always carried a higher price. However, there is a need for higher performance, and clearly the market shows that the demand is there for the price, I'm looking at you servers and computer enthusiasts.
I have a 300GB velociraptor in my computer, and I have been eye'ing the SSD's for some time, but they just haven't hit the price point for me yet to justify purchasing them yet.
In fact, I feel like an oddity, I work for a small IT firm, and when I asked my boss why a customer's computer had a raid0 of 250'sGB (where we had to replace them both with a new 500GB) why did he just get a velociraptor in the first place, he simply stated that it was cheaper to get 2 250GB hard drives at $60 than it was to get 1 300GB velociraptor.
Now, the only thing that may change the landscape from all this is that SSDs are built on silicon, which is subject to Moore's Law, and we've witnessed how cheap thumb drives and other flash media drives are, there's definitely a real possibility that in time SSD's will be faster AND cheaper than HDDs.
I've always liked Anand's articles primarily because he's not afraid to be frank and say something that's bad is bad. He doesn't sugar coat. Sometimes, when a product launches, he reviews it, and he says it doesn't live up to the hype, or X thing is missing/wrong/etc, I get bummed, but he does quite well at putting it all into perspective.
At the same time, I "feel" this giddy-nerd-joy when he writes about something that is ground-breaking or game-changing (RV770, Nehalem, etc). Take a look at this article, it's about how the RV770 came to be, and if you liked the SSD article and the back story, you'll surely be impressed by this one: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3469
I'm 24 and I more than vividly remember my young teen years in my car. 2001 wolfsburg Jetta, I bought it off the lot with 10 miles on it. The car itself is only 150hp, still even kinda measly by today's standards, but although I did my fair share of speeding, I'd have to say the biggest thing that I should have been limited on (even if it would have limited my fun) was the acceleration. Acceleration is what gets you in trouble, making a fool grabbing attention.
The 80mph limit wouldn't have stopped either any of my tickets either (before or after turning 18).
There is a far easier method to go through tho, parents buy their kids grandma cars. Although, I guess by the time I'll be having kids, my car will be a grandma car, so how does this little paradox work?
Why is it that it's always AT&T that is in the news for the astronomic bills? I can't recall the last time I heard Verizon gouging their customers. If odds are supposed to show how often people make mistakes like this, AT&T charges $85,000, $20,000, and that guy got charged (IIRC) $4,000 for having his iPhone off while on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, mind you never Virgin, Sprint, or anyone else.
I think AT&T lives on gouging their customers, I never hear the story about how AT&T is helping their customers with bills, or something else like it.
Because I think it's relevant, I'll post my experience with WoW and my addiction to it.
I want to say first and foremost, I don't fault WoW or Blizzard at all, it was merely a medium that I attached my addiction to. You could probably insert any MMO for me and my story probably would have changed only by date.
Anyway, a great bit of irony starts with when I first played WoW, I avoided the game like the plague because although I greatly enjoyed WC3 and many other blizzard titles, I didn't want to get hooked to it.
Ok, maybe this part makes me a bit unique, and may perhaps only makes my addicting nature to games manifest worse, but when I get a game, I do in a way enthrall myself into any new game I get and play relatively non-stop till I feel I beat it, or get really bored of it. I have to beat a game, and I have to beat it well enough to feel good or superior in some fashion, even if it is self-indulgent.
I started playing WoW like I started playing any game. I could go onto a long story about my slippery slope that got me completely addicted to it.
There were a few catalysts on the way: 1st catalyst was a girl. She broke my heart, yadda yadda, what did I turn to to "comfort" me? WoW. My grades were already slipping, as was my interest in school, WoW was merely a catalyst for getting me out of school. No more school, so what did I have more time to play? WoW. Then the restaurant I worked at closed. I was already long gone at this point, going home early, taking the cut early in the night so I could go home and play WoW is the norm for me practically. when the restaurant closed, I got to play 16hrs a day, 7 days a week for 2 months. glorious by my measure. Then with a pretty powerful intervention, I stopped playing WoW.
I wouldn't say I went through any physical withdrawl, but man, I definitely had some significant "mental" withdrawl. For me, WoW was a nice cocktail of things: Ego, Attention, and Indulgment. I think there is a physical side effect of game playing that ALL gamers get addicted to, its the adrenaline and endorphins that get released turning something exciting, FPS shooters likely get it when they kill someone or go on a killing spree. For me, it was difficult boss kills. Get me a difficult boss, throw me at it for 40hrs of raiding and finally killing it, there are few better feelings in the world than that. THAT is the addiction that MMO "addicts" get. I was in a very real way addicted to the chemical release my body gave me when killing bosses, I couldn't wait for tough bosses to kill. I would say it was highly different for alcohol addiction or other drug addictions that was said earlier to have the brain literally rewired, where the drug of choice didn't have any real affect or any more "pleasure" on the person anymore, gaming addiction is very different, there is that chemical addiction I think, and for me, some of my biggest "highs" were toward the end of my time, and there were significant amounts of smaller "highs" early, and other big "highs" at other times as well, but there was never for me a "meh high" that drug addicts get in their late addictions.
but i know in Ohio, we're supposed to report any out of state purchases that arrive in Ohio (like all the computer stuff i get from newegg) on our 1040s.
i say supposed to because i haven't reported any of my purchases any year.
god i hope no one from the ohio tax office is reading this...
no disrespect to Mr. T, but Chuck Norris would have been much better.
Chuck Norris
Lawful Good Superhuman
Strength: 20
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 12
Constitution: 16
Dexterity: 18
Charisma: 15
Special Abilities: Tears cure all afflictions. Roundhouse kick, if rolled higher than 1d4, defeats enemy. Beard has special powers not yet seen.
Slashdot Mirror
To me, this is an excellent example of what goes wrong without Net Neutrality. Wikipedia: I can understand and agree with paying to float data caps to share their information. However, Facebook and Google (and any other company using "zero rating") are abusing their power. If a true Facebook or Google competitor could be built within these countries natively, they would be at a severe disadvantage because of the superpowers they're going up against.
I don't think that is disputable. The trouble is how to vet the "Wikipedias" that the public could greatly benefit from and the "Facebooks and Googles" that are using their money to have an unfair advantage over competition?
I am not surprised at all that the hotels kicked em to the curb. Makes sense, you have a bunch of techies that do not gamble like other conventioneers do, CES makes money (and continues to beable to have the CES because of the income), and no offense to the small players, but if you can't pay/are unwilling to pay to get on the floor, then perhaps you don't belong at CES.
From the Hotel's perspective, the removal makes complete sense. CES is bringing in money to them, paying them to have X amount of floor space, which X floor space would be larger if these small players paid to be on the floor, and are instead paying for just a room.
Which sounds more likely in Vegas: CES is really upset not to have the money and asks the small player(s) to be removed, or the Hotel is upset enough to ask them to leave because they're not making the extra money. I'm going with the latter. Vegas hotels will say one thing and then change their mind, or the front of the hotel person was incorrect on the "restrictions" (possibly even using tricky wording to think they have the freedom to have their displays in their room). My money is totally on hotel management getting wind of it and taking it upon themselves to "solve" the situation.
They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs. And they have no overlap with all the things we do in the FPSes.'
What about Fallout 3?
Last I checked, Fallout 3 was an RPG. I don't know I could be mutated to believe anything.
Higher performing parts have always carried a higher price. However, there is a need for higher performance, and clearly the market shows that the demand is there for the price, I'm looking at you servers and computer enthusiasts.
I have a 300GB velociraptor in my computer, and I have been eye'ing the SSD's for some time, but they just haven't hit the price point for me yet to justify purchasing them yet.
In fact, I feel like an oddity, I work for a small IT firm, and when I asked my boss why a customer's computer had a raid0 of 250'sGB (where we had to replace them both with a new 500GB) why did he just get a velociraptor in the first place, he simply stated that it was cheaper to get 2 250GB hard drives at $60 than it was to get 1 300GB velociraptor.
Now, the only thing that may change the landscape from all this is that SSDs are built on silicon, which is subject to Moore's Law, and we've witnessed how cheap thumb drives and other flash media drives are, there's definitely a real possibility that in time SSD's will be faster AND cheaper than HDDs.
I've always liked Anand's articles primarily because he's not afraid to be frank and say something that's bad is bad. He doesn't sugar coat. Sometimes, when a product launches, he reviews it, and he says it doesn't live up to the hype, or X thing is missing/wrong/etc, I get bummed, but he does quite well at putting it all into perspective.
At the same time, I "feel" this giddy-nerd-joy when he writes about something that is ground-breaking or game-changing (RV770, Nehalem, etc). Take a look at this article, it's about how the RV770 came to be, and if you liked the SSD article and the back story, you'll surely be impressed by this one: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3469
I'm 24 and I more than vividly remember my young teen years in my car. 2001 wolfsburg Jetta, I bought it off the lot with 10 miles on it. The car itself is only 150hp, still even kinda measly by today's standards, but although I did my fair share of speeding, I'd have to say the biggest thing that I should have been limited on (even if it would have limited my fun) was the acceleration. Acceleration is what gets you in trouble, making a fool grabbing attention.
The 80mph limit wouldn't have stopped either any of my tickets either (before or after turning 18).
There is a far easier method to go through tho, parents buy their kids grandma cars. Although, I guess by the time I'll be having kids, my car will be a grandma car, so how does this little paradox work?
Why is it that it's always AT&T that is in the news for the astronomic bills? I can't recall the last time I heard Verizon gouging their customers. If odds are supposed to show how often people make mistakes like this, AT&T charges $85,000, $20,000, and that guy got charged (IIRC) $4,000 for having his iPhone off while on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, mind you never Virgin, Sprint, or anyone else.
I think AT&T lives on gouging their customers, I never hear the story about how AT&T is helping their customers with bills, or something else like it.
Because I think it's relevant, I'll post my experience with WoW and my addiction to it.
I want to say first and foremost, I don't fault WoW or Blizzard at all, it was merely a medium that I attached my addiction to. You could probably insert any MMO for me and my story probably would have changed only by date.
Anyway, a great bit of irony starts with when I first played WoW, I avoided the game like the plague because although I greatly enjoyed WC3 and many other blizzard titles, I didn't want to get hooked to it.
Ok, maybe this part makes me a bit unique, and may perhaps only makes my addicting nature to games manifest worse, but when I get a game, I do in a way enthrall myself into any new game I get and play relatively non-stop till I feel I beat it, or get really bored of it. I have to beat a game, and I have to beat it well enough to feel good or superior in some fashion, even if it is self-indulgent.
I started playing WoW like I started playing any game. I could go onto a long story about my slippery slope that got me completely addicted to it.
There were a few catalysts on the way: 1st catalyst was a girl. She broke my heart, yadda yadda, what did I turn to to "comfort" me? WoW. My grades were already slipping, as was my interest in school, WoW was merely a catalyst for getting me out of school. No more school, so what did I have more time to play? WoW. Then the restaurant I worked at closed. I was already long gone at this point, going home early, taking the cut early in the night so I could go home and play WoW is the norm for me practically. when the restaurant closed, I got to play 16hrs a day, 7 days a week for 2 months. glorious by my measure. Then with a pretty powerful intervention, I stopped playing WoW.
I wouldn't say I went through any physical withdrawl, but man, I definitely had some significant "mental" withdrawl. For me, WoW was a nice cocktail of things: Ego, Attention, and Indulgment. I think there is a physical side effect of game playing that ALL gamers get addicted to, its the adrenaline and endorphins that get released turning something exciting, FPS shooters likely get it when they kill someone or go on a killing spree. For me, it was difficult boss kills. Get me a difficult boss, throw me at it for 40hrs of raiding and finally killing it, there are few better feelings in the world than that. THAT is the addiction that MMO "addicts" get. I was in a very real way addicted to the chemical release my body gave me when killing bosses, I couldn't wait for tough bosses to kill. I would say it was highly different for alcohol addiction or other drug addictions that was said earlier to have the brain literally rewired, where the drug of choice didn't have any real affect or any more "pleasure" on the person anymore, gaming addiction is very different, there is that chemical addiction I think, and for me, some of my biggest "highs" were toward the end of my time, and there were significant amounts of smaller "highs" early, and other big "highs" at other times as well, but there was never for me a "meh high" that drug addicts get in their late addictions.
but i know in Ohio, we're supposed to report any out of state purchases that arrive in Ohio (like all the computer stuff i get from newegg) on our 1040s. i say supposed to because i haven't reported any of my purchases any year. god i hope no one from the ohio tax office is reading this...
no disrespect to Mr. T, but Chuck Norris would have been much better. Chuck Norris Lawful Good Superhuman Strength: 20 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 12 Constitution: 16 Dexterity: 18 Charisma: 15 Special Abilities: Tears cure all afflictions. Roundhouse kick, if rolled higher than 1d4, defeats enemy. Beard has special powers not yet seen.