The PS2 is still selling well because parents are buying for their kids (hard core gamers forget this).
Games are a huge part of the equation. There are hundreds of kid friendly titles out there at modest prices.
- Kid friendly means parents don't want their 5 year olds playing first person shooters, many kid friendly PS2 games, few xbox or PS3.
- Kids tear up DVD game discs at an alarming rate (since difficult and possibly illegal to copy).
- With the large disparity in game quality today, less risk for lower priced games.
With Respect to the Console
- $100 is much easier to swallow than $300-400 when you know the kids are likely going to abuse them anyway.
- PS3 won't play PS2 games (with exceptions, but hard to find).
- A large percentage of households still have SD TV's.
You guessed it, we bought our kids a PS2 for the reasons above. I really wanted a newer system for myself, but simply could not justify the extra expense. If we could have purchased a $200-300 PS3 that was hardware compatible with PS2 games (eliminating the first set of objections), we probably would have purchased that instead.
Intel charges more for chips with VT enabled, they use it as an up sell. Many laptop manufacturers are choosing not to pay the extra, especially on low end laptops with razor thin margins. This isn't just a Sony problem. As any Apple fanboy can tell you, Apple pays for the good stuff.
Office 2007 is the first version I actually felt compelling enough to pay money for (once the menu's are set to NOT change). Not a power user but have used many applications over the years. Have many old documents in odd formats now, and started relying heavily on plain.txt documents for stuff that doesn't need heavy formatting. Open office is getting usable for most people, and recommend it when feel it is appropriate.
A good manager always looks at threats from all sources even if they are small. I'm sure Linux has been on internal reports for years, and just now making the public reports. Not really a huge change.
Yes microsoft has some good managers. Too many in fact.
Until it is trivial to rip to my media center I won't spend a dime on BluRay. We also take great pride in owning the physical media for everything on our media center (nothing stolen).
In most states the contractor is only liable if the line is marked properly and within a reasonable distance from the mark. The utility will bill the contractor for repairs if the cable/pipe/line is cut within 3 feet (in my state anyway) of the mark. The biggest problem is utilities unable to mark their buried lines within 3' (they don't know exactly were it is either).
After watching friends buy new equipment because one piece was downgrading the signal, I swore HDMI off. My HDTV is connected to our $50 (well $150 after upgrades) Dell Media Server via a VGA cable with an embedded sound cable. Works wonderful and worry free.
The RIAA has not had a reason to exist since the internet come of age. I will use this service in the future since it gives the artists 40% instead of the 10-14% from major labels, and prefer to purchase physical media and rip myself.
Currently you can download and install Windows Mobile apps from anywhere. Something keeps whispering in my head that Microsoft will totally copy Apple's "Locked In" App Store concept with version 7. Why not? It appears they are attempting to copy the rest of the concepts as well.
We do pay the $9 a month to stream movies on Netflix.
We occasionally watch movies on Hulu (small, slow changing movie selection, otherwise great).
No longer have cable, simply re-purposed an old $50 Dell as a media server, upgraded it with an inexpensive but functional graphics card, and connected to our Sony HDTV. Running the Alpha of Boxee.
The App store needs a refund mechanism to allow consumers to return poor products for a full refund. To prevent too much abuse it needs a time limit, perhaps an hour.
This would allow consumers to try out several apps that are similar and pay for the best one. It would also allow them to try out a paid app to see if it is worth purchasing. Due to the abundance of poorly coded apps, I believe consumers are overly cautious toward purchasing good apps, and settle for the cheapest (we certainly are).
IMO, this would create a race to quality, instead of today's race to the cheapest. Over time developers would find it easier to sell quality apps for a reasonable price.
The downside is the extra server load on Apple's servers.
We have used Firefox since before version 1, but firefox 3 has a serious problem that forces us to use other browswers for gaming. About every 20 minutes it locks up and pages to the hard drive for about 30 seconds. A pain when your typing, but death in a game. Every one of our Windows boxes exhibit this same Firefox "feature", with no hope in site.
No way is Vista or 7 going on any of our machines, unless MS does a huge about face on built in DRM. XP is likely the last windows our family will ever use.
If you look at price per hours of enjoyment, they are cheap.
On the other hand, As a dad we still own a PS2, due to the fact there are plenty of kid friendly titles for $20 and less.
Kids destroy DVD's fast, usually a couple months tops, one went down in a single day. If not destroyed, they tend to either get bored with them, or mostly finish the game, and ask for another.
The student needed reprimanded, that is clear. The sad reality is the schools must rely on our police force to deal with the students, or risk a lawsuit. What can you do with a student that will not do what the school employees ask, and blatantly lies to them? In the meantime the students wanting to learn probably missed a day of lecture.
I'd love to have that box, but my Craigslist Boxee Media Center cost $50 plus $50 for a decent graphics card. Needs a remote, but otherwise works well.
Many other utilities handled this way
on
Houses With Tails
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· Score: 1
In rural areas, many utilities are managed in this manner, especially water, but often other utilities such as sewer systems. Most rural water districts are formed by a group of neighbors getting together and forming an association, hiring an engineer, and arranging financing (often government backed grants and loans). Board members are voted in from the utility users to manage the system.
It is not unusual for a rural customer to pay $5,000 for the right to connect to a water system for instance, then pay all costs to get the service installed, even on the system side. Once in service the rights to the service very much stay with the property. The homeowner is responsible for maintenance from the service connection to their home after installation, while the district as a whole takes care of maintenance on the distribution side of the connection. This is obviously handled as part of the monthly fee.
Most states have laws governing the formation of such districts. I wonder how they apply to Internet service?
After using open office for a couple years I had no plans to ever purchase MS Office again. Upon returning to Grad school, it became a necessity. Several classes require regression analysis, and the subsequent checks (student t or F, R^2, etc.). They also want the original excel file in an attempt to check for originality. I'm convinced regressions are the most used stat tool in upper classes. This is a glaring omission from OO.
Yes,
My screen is also UXGA or 1920x1200. 1080 is 1920x1080, thus the laptop screen is actually higher resolution. Since the user is sitting so close to the screen it really needs higher res video to look good.
Slashdot Mirror
Games are a huge part of the equation. There are hundreds of kid friendly titles out there at modest prices.
- Kid friendly means parents don't want their 5 year olds playing first person shooters, many kid friendly PS2 games, few xbox or PS3.
- Kids tear up DVD game discs at an alarming rate (since difficult and possibly illegal to copy).
- With the large disparity in game quality today, less risk for lower priced games.
With Respect to the Console
- $100 is much easier to swallow than $300-400 when you know the kids are likely going to abuse them anyway.
- PS3 won't play PS2 games (with exceptions, but hard to find).
- A large percentage of households still have SD TV's.
You guessed it, we bought our kids a PS2 for the reasons above. I really wanted a newer system for myself, but simply could not justify the extra expense. If we could have purchased a $200-300 PS3 that was hardware compatible with PS2 games (eliminating the first set of objections), we probably would have purchased that instead.
Intel charges more for chips with VT enabled, they use it as an up sell. Many laptop manufacturers are choosing not to pay the extra, especially on low end laptops with razor thin margins. This isn't just a Sony problem. As any Apple fanboy can tell you, Apple pays for the good stuff.
Microsoft is effectively killing 12" netbooks by charging OEM's higher licensing fees for screens over 10.2".
Office 2007 is the first version I actually felt compelling enough to pay money for (once the menu's are set to NOT change). Not a power user but have used many applications over the years. Have many old documents in odd formats now, and started relying heavily on plain .txt documents for stuff that doesn't need heavy formatting. Open office is getting usable for most people, and recommend it when feel it is appropriate.
Yes microsoft has some good managers. Too many in fact.
Until it is trivial to rip to my media center I won't spend a dime on BluRay. We also take great pride in owning the physical media for everything on our media center (nothing stolen).
I thought Pixar's culture was supposed to rub off on Disney.... not the other way around.
In most states the contractor is only liable if the line is marked properly and within a reasonable distance from the mark. The utility will bill the contractor for repairs if the cable/pipe/line is cut within 3 feet (in my state anyway) of the mark. The biggest problem is utilities unable to mark their buried lines within 3' (they don't know exactly were it is either).
After watching friends buy new equipment because one piece was downgrading the signal, I swore HDMI off. My HDTV is connected to our $50 (well $150 after upgrades) Dell Media Server via a VGA cable with an embedded sound cable. Works wonderful and worry free.
The RIAA has not had a reason to exist since the internet come of age. I will use this service in the future since it gives the artists 40% instead of the 10-14% from major labels, and prefer to purchase physical media and rip myself.
The woman I have helped purchase laptops wanted something fast and worry free. In Red of course.
Currently you can download and install Windows Mobile apps from anywhere. Something keeps whispering in my head that Microsoft will totally copy Apple's "Locked In" App Store concept with version 7. Why not? It appears they are attempting to copy the rest of the concepts as well.
No.
We do pay the $9 a month to stream movies on Netflix.
We occasionally watch movies on Hulu (small, slow changing movie selection, otherwise great).
No longer have cable, simply re-purposed an old $50 Dell as a media server, upgraded it with an inexpensive but functional graphics card, and connected to our Sony HDTV. Running the Alpha of Boxee.
The App store needs a refund mechanism to allow consumers to return poor products for a full refund. To prevent too much abuse it needs a time limit, perhaps an hour.
This would allow consumers to try out several apps that are similar and pay for the best one. It would also allow them to try out a paid app to see if it is worth purchasing. Due to the abundance of poorly coded apps, I believe consumers are overly cautious toward purchasing good apps, and settle for the cheapest (we certainly are).
IMO, this would create a race to quality, instead of today's race to the cheapest. Over time developers would find it easier to sell quality apps for a reasonable price.
The downside is the extra server load on Apple's servers.
Sunfly (MBA)
We have used Firefox since before version 1, but firefox 3 has a serious problem that forces us to use other browswers for gaming. About every 20 minutes it locks up and pages to the hard drive for about 30 seconds. A pain when your typing, but death in a game. Every one of our Windows boxes exhibit this same Firefox "feature", with no hope in site.
Yes, exactly what I'm referring to. If MS did not add the DRM for the content providers, it would have withered away.
No way is Vista or 7 going on any of our machines, unless MS does a huge about face on built in DRM. XP is likely the last windows our family will ever use.
That's almost funny.
If you look at price per hours of enjoyment, they are cheap.
On the other hand, As a dad we still own a PS2, due to the fact there are plenty of kid friendly titles for $20 and less.
Kids destroy DVD's fast, usually a couple months tops, one went down in a single day. If not destroyed, they tend to either get bored with them, or mostly finish the game, and ask for another.
The student needed reprimanded, that is clear. The sad reality is the schools must rely on our police force to deal with the students, or risk a lawsuit. What can you do with a student that will not do what the school employees ask, and blatantly lies to them? In the meantime the students wanting to learn probably missed a day of lecture.
I'd love to have that box, but my Craigslist Boxee Media Center cost $50 plus $50 for a decent graphics card. Needs a remote, but otherwise works well.
In rural areas, many utilities are managed in this manner, especially water, but often other utilities such as sewer systems. Most rural water districts are formed by a group of neighbors getting together and forming an association, hiring an engineer, and arranging financing (often government backed grants and loans). Board members are voted in from the utility users to manage the system.
It is not unusual for a rural customer to pay $5,000 for the right to connect to a water system for instance, then pay all costs to get the service installed, even on the system side. Once in service the rights to the service very much stay with the property. The homeowner is responsible for maintenance from the service connection to their home after installation, while the district as a whole takes care of maintenance on the distribution side of the connection. This is obviously handled as part of the monthly fee.
Most states have laws governing the formation of such districts. I wonder how they apply to Internet service?
27 megapixels is almost consumer grade today. Why so low?
After using open office for a couple years I had no plans to ever purchase MS Office again. Upon returning to Grad school, it became a necessity. Several classes require regression analysis, and the subsequent checks (student t or F, R^2, etc.). They also want the original excel file in an attempt to check for originality. I'm convinced regressions are the most used stat tool in upper classes. This is a glaring omission from OO.
Yes, My screen is also UXGA or 1920x1200. 1080 is 1920x1080, thus the laptop screen is actually higher resolution. Since the user is sitting so close to the screen it really needs higher res video to look good.