a person who is confined; especially a prisoner of war
lets see here, the kids A) Didn't choose to come on their free will B) Can't leave when they choose C) Are mentally stable and can make their own decisions and D) are being held against their will. I would call them prisoners.
Isn't it common sense to most sane people that physical punishment is bad for most things except for perhaps hardened criminals? Especially for something as vague as "internet addiction" that might not even exist.
Well, in open source, if there are two good projects and you leave one out, chances are the developers who favored that will either fork it or simply stop coding for you. If its 50-50 you are risking over half your coders which on most OSS projects, they can't afford to do that.
...Because that isn't the best UI? I find myself in real life wishing that it had an easy to use UI like a computer sometimes. Plus navigation in the real world is tiring and time consuming. For example in the "real world" you find things in a file cabinet, that is a lot harder than just CTRL+F and the filename. A basic GUI is much better than a "real world" environment. It also doesn't need a high-powered graphics card and an up to date CPU.
Even worse, you can get an EEE for far cheaper with better specs. If I'm going to get a netbook the things I'm going to look at are A) Price B) Specs C) Portability and D) Drivers for non-default OSes. Lets see here, 2 gigs of flash, even my $350 almost 2 years old EEE PC 701 had more than that. Intel Atom is generic, the screen size is meh, the keyboard is crap, etc. etc. Would I buy it for $150? In a heartbeat, would I buy it for $200? Possibly. But for $700?!? No way. For $700 I can get a "real" laptop with a great CPU and more RAM and HDD space than I will ever use. Plus a better trackpad and keyboard.
One thing they fail to see is their design. A Europlug or an American/Japanese style plug is easy to plug in, easy to take out and isn't a huge cord. I'd rather my laptop cable be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PC_flex_with_CEE_7-7_plug.png than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PC_flex_with_BS_1363_plug.png its a lot easier to carry and use. As for the debate on amps and volts, in all honesty has there been a single thing that you wanted to have but couldn't because it required more power but people in other countries where there are more amps and volts can get?
My favorite line was this
And that has left the US with a plug and socket system that makes Chuck Norris weep. Plugs that hang out of the wall. Pins that are so easily bent you could write off a cable just by looking at it in the wrong way. How anyone ever gets their Apple laptop to fully charge without the adaptor falling out of the wall is beyond us. We're not sure why the company bothered inventing Magsafe -- surely if anyone in the US trips over a power cable, it flies out of the wall so fast no laptop could ever be pulled to the ground.
Plugs that hang out of the wall? Unless you are living in an ancient building that has decaying sockets I don't see how that happens. None of my cords "hang out of the wall" nor have they. Pins that are so easily bent? Unless you are talking about the pins on Christmas tree lights (which manage to always have -something- wrong with them) I have never had a bent pin in my life from American plugs. And as for tripping, how fast were they running when they managed to trip something out of the wall? Its not that easy.
But in the end I think it is just the "My country is better than your country" crap that seems to be spewed a lot.
Show me the court case. Until that happens EULAs are both ethically a problem and legally a problem. For one it stretches the definition of a contract. Nowhere on the Snow Leopard box does it print the EULA. Most stores have a return policy that makes it impossible to return opened software unless it is defective. So you have an unknown contract that costs $30 to read, no ability to easily return it, and the software is useless without accepting the EULA. Now some may point out that you can go to Apple's website and read it before you buy, however, if I offered a "Real Talking Doll" with small print that says "goto somesite.com/specs/somefile.pdf for details" and that file said that it didn't talk, nor was it real I think that would still be grounds for deceptive advertising.
Which had annoying legislation like the DMCA not passed, we could actually change that. Really we need sane copyright laws, yes, Apple should be allowed to block Atom CPUs but I should be able to hack in support if I feel like it.
Or is it basic economics? Large, powerful, good site goes down leaving a vacuum for new sites to pop up. The demand hasn't slowed any and so its natural for lots of smaller sites to pop up until they become as good as TPB then we start over again.
How about letting them be? You know, as a kid I always hated artificial consequences, they don't work in the real world. In most cases they were totally pointless. For example, you come home late and so you get grounded. That doesn't happen in the real world. You come home late in the real world and you either get up for work the next morning and are a bit tired, you take a "sick" day or the day off and nothing more comes of it. In the real world if you have a speech problem in general nothing major is going to come of it if you are skilled in another area. Look at Stephen Hawking, due to ALS, he requires a voice synthesizer to speak yet he is one of the most brilliant men of our time. If you are good enough in other areas to not have to speak much, good for you. We should not place false artificial consequences, people in "the real world" are generally pretty accommodating if you don't tick them off. I have no doubts that someone who is mute or talks strange can accomplish great things, if they can live their life without needing to speak properly let them.
We've all seen the family out to dinner with mum and dad staring into space and the kids totally absorbed by their Nintendos. The prevalence of modern technology has created massive problems in the development of language skills in kids because it has made it so easy for them to avoid conversation.
Or has technology really increased conversation. I mean, due to the internet the average person talks to many more people than ever before. For example, right now I am replying to your post, I might never see you, we might live in different countries, we may have totally different interests and career paths yet we are communicating. 30 years ago that was unheard of. Yet it is something we do on a daily basis.
I've heard of otherwise normally intelligent teenagers who cannot express frighteningly simple things like "I like the way she looks in that dress" without a lot of effort. They speak like you would expect someone to speak after learning a foreign language for about three weeks - they have to think about the words and the order of the words, and they make stuff up that sounds plausible to cover the fact they know they are getting it wrong.
Or you know it could be part of the social awkwardness of teenagers where they don't want to give a huge complement and seem like they are romantically interested with someone yet they don't want to completely ignore it. Or they want to make a joke but don't know how the other person will take it, etc.
Computer games are part of the problem and I don't think they can be more than a minor part of the solution as theses kids need to learn the visual aspects of communication as well - body language and facial expressions. These people need face to face interaction that involves cooperative problem solving to encourage them to talk.
But is our society as a whole shifting towards text based communication? For one its much more private, would you rather sit on a bus next to someone screaming loudly on their BlackBerry or next to someone spending the ride texting? It is also a lot less demanding, when you call someone or arrange to meet someone somewhere they have to stop whatever they are doing and devote a lot more time and energy into quite honestly trivial things. Most people's conversations are not really huge in depth conversations but rather short questions, answers and replies. For example, what can be accomplished in 2-3 messages via texting would take a lot longer if you had to call the person, also, it avoids "phone tag" and other annoyances, if they are eating dinner they can simply text you an hour or two later. Both parties have an absolute guarantee that they got the message exactly as it was given to them. The telephone call and face-to-face meetings are more or less obsolete, especially for the numerous friends people have who aren't the closest people to them but they still wish to communicate with.
Yeah, and EULAs are a joke. You already paid for the software, you already opened the software, you already took out the disk and if the terms are against your liking what do you do? You can't return the software because you already opened it, you couldn't have known about the terms because they were on the disk and not the packaging. So in the end you have no knowledge of the terms beforehand yet they require you to accept them and if you don't accept them you are out the amount of money you spent on your purchase. And don't say that you could get them on the internet because I'm sure no judge would accept a contract that they didn't even see yet agreed to and you are suing them on breach of contract and you claim that they didn't even ask to see the contract because they didn't know there was a contract. I don't think that would fly by any reasonably competent judge.
Or even better have Apple simply drop this case. In general Apple caters to people who want A) A headache-free user experience, a hackintosh even with Psystar's tools will never offer this B) People who want style, again, Psystar won't offer this because their machines are typical PC-looking C) People who have used Macs for ages, which again, they won't get from Psystar.
All Psystar is appealing to is people who really want OS X or a machine that Apple doesn't have either an actually -cheap- machine (I can buy a pre-made machine for $350 or less and get a faster/better machine), a good expandable desktop (Mac Pros are too expensive, and neither the iMac nor the Mac Mini can be expanded), a cheap laptop (even though they do have good laptops, when you can buy a laptop that for most users meets their needs for $300, compared to ones -starting- at $999, most people would pick the cheapest one). Since Psystar isn't stealing Apple's customers, why bother with a lengthy suit?
What could change Microsoft's standing, and stop eroding customer confidence is doing what they did with Windows 7, and open-beta each operating system for 90 days to get feedback on what people like and dislike. Had they done this back with Windows XP, we might never have seen the terrible Vista.
Or they could stop doing things halfheartedly. Some of the main problems with Vista included UAC which was basically trying to be like sudo for Windows. Unfortunately it didn't really change anything because people are A) So used to clicking "yes" to every single dialogue box and B) there was -no- rhyme or reason to why some things required admin privileges. With Ubuntu I can basically figure out why Synaptic needs my password. On the other hand if I would see no reason why something like The GIMP would need my password (and for the record it doesn't) but some things in Windows that are basically equivalent to the GIMP in needed privileges somehow need to be run as admin to work. No reason given, just run it as admin.
And Vista was not Windows ME. Vista was stable, ME was not.
And both were useless. A car that constantly breaks down is just as bad as a car that won't go faster than 45 MPH. One you couldn't do work because it was always crashing, the other you couldn't do work because it took 5 mins just for the stupid thing to respond to a mouse movement.
The Xbox/Xbox360 development must have hired the same people who worked on Windows ME. Pushed unfinished, poorly tested hardware out the door to meet some business agenda.
But on the other hand they won. Yeah, the first 360s were crap quality, yeah they had about a 50% failure rate and would eat disks. But on the other hand a heck lot more of them were sold than PS3s. The 360 is fast becoming the PS2 of this generation, lots of exclusive games and a lot of quality games. The PS3 is in dead last and chances are will be the loser this generation. Yes, the 360 can't really beat the Wii, but they beat Sony this time.
The problem isn't the techs at MS. I've talked to many employees of Microsoft, they aren't idiots, they aren't the "bottom barrel" code monkeys, heck some of them even read/. and know more Linux and UNIX than the average Linux sysadmin. The problem is management. Its gotten so bad that in general the people working on Office don't even talk to the guys developing the OS, the OS guys don't talk to the guys making the UI, etc. Microsoft has gotten so big and vast that the people who should be in close contact with one another aren't. Things are developed independently and I believe that they even have multiple projects going on for the same thing and one gets picked and the others get scrapped. Its little wonder nothing gets done.
Lets see, when you have a pretty much bankrupt state (California), a bridge that is too necessary to fully replace without inconveniencing many people, the fact that it isn't exactly in a stable environment, with wind, rain and corrosion everywhere is it any surprise that a bridge that has been up for over 70 years needs some emergency repairs?
Because it would allow for a language and framework that works on every single OS. Look at Java, even though it has numerous faults, the fact that it is now open source and ported to just about every single device means that it is used for lots of cross-platform programs. Flash could be the same way if they ported the player to every OS and device. By open sourcing the Flash player they would A) save money in development B) allow the porting of it to various platforms and C) Improve sales for their development program.
I don't think though that Nintendo could do that without basically killing the DS. I think they tried to do that with the GBA, DS and GameCube systems all at once, but the GBA was then seen as obsolete and supported faded from it. Nintendo also attempted this with the SNES, GameBoy and Virtual Boy but the Virtual Boy failed to find a niche and failed in the marketplace. Also, I don't see any upcoming technologies that would work without taking from the marketshare of the DS. For example, captive touchscreens are where a lot of development has taken place in recent years, but I don't see how that would work without destroying the DS in the process. Motion control doesn't work very well on portable gaming systems. About the only thing I can see Nintendo doing is basically making a Game Boy Advance and putting captive touchscreens where the controls were and allowing that to dynamically change the controls based on the action on the main screen.
There also hasn't been any other game company that has succeeded in keeping 3 systems alive without one as the successor to the other. I'm not confident that Nintendo is able to pull that off.
Because Flash is now a crucial part of the internet. Until HTML 5 comes out with video standards and the like, Flash is about the only way you can embed videos in sites without ruining the layout of the site with a third-party media player and without your users searching for codecs.
If Adobe would simply release the source to the Flash player, they could -save- money, have full platform compatibility and perhaps make more money with the Flash creation products. Think of it this way, if there was a fast language (most apps in Flash seem to load, run and interact faster than Java) that you could truly write once and run anywhere, it would be a hit. Flash could be this language if Adobe just opens up the player. Until they open it up, I expect them to do a good job and port it to every single OS or platform where it is allowed because it is good for business for them and helps that platform (which in all honesty Adobe should want to kill Windows as quickly as possible and move the world to OS X and Linux).
And Android (not just Droid, or Verizon, but Android) is doing that. Right now the iPhone is tied into AT&T, if you are on T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon you can't use the iPhone without some difficulty. Android will eventually be available no matter which phone company you prefer. Then there is the variety of hardware. Someone who doesn't like using a touchscreen for typing won't like the iPhone, yet the G1, Droid and other Android phones have physical keyboards and if you prefer an all touchscreen phone the Magic and Hero phones have that.
The ability not to have to jump ship for the "latest and greatest" might be a huge feature of Android, especially if you are tied into a contract. While some phones will be carrier exclusive without a doubt, Android itself is cross-network. Android's power is not int he G1, Magic, Droid, Hero or any other phone but in the fact it can easily saturate the market better than any other platform currently offered. When even "dumb phones" can run the apps you have written for Android, it is going to reach more of the market than Apple's high-end exclusive offerings and make it easier than "jump through hoops to get it to run without using expensive data plans" problems that JavaME has.
They can always use an international ad network. I don't see any other ad-supported site complain about foreign visitors. And the ones that do try to keep foreigners out (Such as Nico Nico) still let your register and view the site so long as you can manage to create an account in their language.
So, Hulu and the content rights holders would have to come to advertising agreements in all of the other nations being catered to while at the same time, trying not to piss off the the broadcasters in those areas too much (after all, the syndicated content -does- appear on TV much later, once these smaller broadcasters can actually afford it - but what advertisers are -they- going to attract if everybody's already seen it for free via Hulu?)... so good luck with that.
But there are still many other shows that don't make it past American, European or Japanese shores at all. For example Family Guy is only broadcast in the US as far as I know and it has been broadcast since 1999, I think it is safe to say it won't be syndicated outside of the US anytime soon. Other shows are totally destroyed in "localization" most anime series are completely ruined when brought to American or European countries. There are many anime fans who would much rather watch the original with subtitles than with sub-par voice acting and many references, scenes or entire characters removed or changed.
Plus, look at how entire markets have been opened by people watching non-native TV. Anime and manga were virtually unknown to most people 15 years ago, but have since become household names. The internet and copyright infringement really opened up those markets. That never would have happened if all the sites were similar to Hulu.
Dear content producers, on behalf of most of the world could you please do us a favor and release things globally? In case you haven't looked online, there are many sites where you can get things for free online (http://thepiratebay.org/) most of us though would really just like the support the creators. If you won't sell the product where your fans are, how are we supposed to support you? I can understand physical DVD sales or broadcasting it via television because that costs money, however the internet allows you to distribute content for -free- without the overhead of needing to translate, ship or alter any media. Even better have the fans do the work -for you- if bandwidth is a problem make it be P2P, if translating it into people's language is a problem allow fansubs. As for the "cultural barrier" many of your fans are educated enough to know that there is a difference in culture and will look up, or accept the cultural difference without being offended. This isn't advice just for American TV being released outside of America but also to anime companies and other companies releasing things globally.
Bottom line. We, the people who don't live in the country where you are currently producing, want to -buy- your content or at least look at the ads. If you won't let us, fine. We will simply pirate it. But chances are you want to make money right? So don't treat us like second-class citizens, we have money just like "your part" of the world does and no, we don't like getting episodes 1-2 months later than the rest of the world and no we don't like being shut off of a service that would allow us to watch TV while supporting the producers. If you must, just block non-American IPs but don't be idiots and start blocking VPNs and other ways to block your fans from trying to legitimately support you. We have other options, but you have an opportunity with the internet to allow us to pay for content. But if you don't want our money, fine. We will go back to pirating your shows.
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a person who is confined; especially a prisoner of war
lets see here, the kids A) Didn't choose to come on their free will B) Can't leave when they choose C) Are mentally stable and can make their own decisions and D) are being held against their will. I would call them prisoners.
Isn't it common sense to most sane people that physical punishment is bad for most things except for perhaps hardened criminals? Especially for something as vague as "internet addiction" that might not even exist.
Well, in open source, if there are two good projects and you leave one out, chances are the developers who favored that will either fork it or simply stop coding for you. If its 50-50 you are risking over half your coders which on most OSS projects, they can't afford to do that.
...Because that isn't the best UI? I find myself in real life wishing that it had an easy to use UI like a computer sometimes. Plus navigation in the real world is tiring and time consuming. For example in the "real world" you find things in a file cabinet, that is a lot harder than just CTRL+F and the filename. A basic GUI is much better than a "real world" environment. It also doesn't need a high-powered graphics card and an up to date CPU.
Well, basically what I was meaning was that unless his sockets were totally screwed up, it should work.
Even worse, you can get an EEE for far cheaper with better specs. If I'm going to get a netbook the things I'm going to look at are A) Price B) Specs C) Portability and D) Drivers for non-default OSes. Lets see here, 2 gigs of flash, even my $350 almost 2 years old EEE PC 701 had more than that. Intel Atom is generic, the screen size is meh, the keyboard is crap, etc. etc. Would I buy it for $150? In a heartbeat, would I buy it for $200? Possibly. But for $700?!? No way. For $700 I can get a "real" laptop with a great CPU and more RAM and HDD space than I will ever use. Plus a better trackpad and keyboard.
My favorite line was this
And that has left the US with a plug and socket system that makes Chuck Norris weep. Plugs that hang out of the wall. Pins that are so easily bent you could write off a cable just by looking at it in the wrong way. How anyone ever gets their Apple laptop to fully charge without the adaptor falling out of the wall is beyond us. We're not sure why the company bothered inventing Magsafe -- surely if anyone in the US trips over a power cable, it flies out of the wall so fast no laptop could ever be pulled to the ground.
Plugs that hang out of the wall? Unless you are living in an ancient building that has decaying sockets I don't see how that happens. None of my cords "hang out of the wall" nor have they. Pins that are so easily bent? Unless you are talking about the pins on Christmas tree lights (which manage to always have -something- wrong with them) I have never had a bent pin in my life from American plugs. And as for tripping, how fast were they running when they managed to trip something out of the wall? Its not that easy.
But in the end I think it is just the "My country is better than your country" crap that seems to be spewed a lot.
How hard is it to define open as
A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered
For just about everything there is a suitable open format. Lets see here:
Images? There are many
Audio? Ogg Vorbis
Video? Ogg Theora
Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)
There isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors.
Show me the court case. Until that happens EULAs are both ethically a problem and legally a problem. For one it stretches the definition of a contract. Nowhere on the Snow Leopard box does it print the EULA. Most stores have a return policy that makes it impossible to return opened software unless it is defective. So you have an unknown contract that costs $30 to read, no ability to easily return it, and the software is useless without accepting the EULA. Now some may point out that you can go to Apple's website and read it before you buy, however, if I offered a "Real Talking Doll" with small print that says "goto somesite.com/specs/somefile.pdf for details" and that file said that it didn't talk, nor was it real I think that would still be grounds for deceptive advertising.
Which had annoying legislation like the DMCA not passed, we could actually change that. Really we need sane copyright laws, yes, Apple should be allowed to block Atom CPUs but I should be able to hack in support if I feel like it.
Or is it basic economics? Large, powerful, good site goes down leaving a vacuum for new sites to pop up. The demand hasn't slowed any and so its natural for lots of smaller sites to pop up until they become as good as TPB then we start over again.
My guess is the "clients" are really students.
How about letting them be? You know, as a kid I always hated artificial consequences, they don't work in the real world. In most cases they were totally pointless. For example, you come home late and so you get grounded. That doesn't happen in the real world. You come home late in the real world and you either get up for work the next morning and are a bit tired, you take a "sick" day or the day off and nothing more comes of it. In the real world if you have a speech problem in general nothing major is going to come of it if you are skilled in another area. Look at Stephen Hawking, due to ALS, he requires a voice synthesizer to speak yet he is one of the most brilliant men of our time. If you are good enough in other areas to not have to speak much, good for you. We should not place false artificial consequences, people in "the real world" are generally pretty accommodating if you don't tick them off. I have no doubts that someone who is mute or talks strange can accomplish great things, if they can live their life without needing to speak properly let them.
We've all seen the family out to dinner with mum and dad staring into space and the kids totally absorbed by their Nintendos. The prevalence of modern technology has created massive problems in the development of language skills in kids because it has made it so easy for them to avoid conversation.
Or has technology really increased conversation. I mean, due to the internet the average person talks to many more people than ever before. For example, right now I am replying to your post, I might never see you, we might live in different countries, we may have totally different interests and career paths yet we are communicating. 30 years ago that was unheard of. Yet it is something we do on a daily basis.
I've heard of otherwise normally intelligent teenagers who cannot express frighteningly simple things like "I like the way she looks in that dress" without a lot of effort. They speak like you would expect someone to speak after learning a foreign language for about three weeks - they have to think about the words and the order of the words, and they make stuff up that sounds plausible to cover the fact they know they are getting it wrong.
Or you know it could be part of the social awkwardness of teenagers where they don't want to give a huge complement and seem like they are romantically interested with someone yet they don't want to completely ignore it. Or they want to make a joke but don't know how the other person will take it, etc.
Computer games are part of the problem and I don't think they can be more than a minor part of the solution as theses kids need to learn the visual aspects of communication as well - body language and facial expressions. These people need face to face interaction that involves cooperative problem solving to encourage them to talk.
But is our society as a whole shifting towards text based communication? For one its much more private, would you rather sit on a bus next to someone screaming loudly on their BlackBerry or next to someone spending the ride texting? It is also a lot less demanding, when you call someone or arrange to meet someone somewhere they have to stop whatever they are doing and devote a lot more time and energy into quite honestly trivial things. Most people's conversations are not really huge in depth conversations but rather short questions, answers and replies. For example, what can be accomplished in 2-3 messages via texting would take a lot longer if you had to call the person, also, it avoids "phone tag" and other annoyances, if they are eating dinner they can simply text you an hour or two later. Both parties have an absolute guarantee that they got the message exactly as it was given to them. The telephone call and face-to-face meetings are more or less obsolete, especially for the numerous friends people have who aren't the closest people to them but they still wish to communicate with.
Yeah, and EULAs are a joke. You already paid for the software, you already opened the software, you already took out the disk and if the terms are against your liking what do you do? You can't return the software because you already opened it, you couldn't have known about the terms because they were on the disk and not the packaging. So in the end you have no knowledge of the terms beforehand yet they require you to accept them and if you don't accept them you are out the amount of money you spent on your purchase. And don't say that you could get them on the internet because I'm sure no judge would accept a contract that they didn't even see yet agreed to and you are suing them on breach of contract and you claim that they didn't even ask to see the contract because they didn't know there was a contract. I don't think that would fly by any reasonably competent judge.
Or even better have Apple simply drop this case. In general Apple caters to people who want A) A headache-free user experience, a hackintosh even with Psystar's tools will never offer this B) People who want style, again, Psystar won't offer this because their machines are typical PC-looking C) People who have used Macs for ages, which again, they won't get from Psystar.
All Psystar is appealing to is people who really want OS X or a machine that Apple doesn't have either an actually -cheap- machine (I can buy a pre-made machine for $350 or less and get a faster/better machine), a good expandable desktop (Mac Pros are too expensive, and neither the iMac nor the Mac Mini can be expanded), a cheap laptop (even though they do have good laptops, when you can buy a laptop that for most users meets their needs for $300, compared to ones -starting- at $999, most people would pick the cheapest one). Since Psystar isn't stealing Apple's customers, why bother with a lengthy suit?
What could change Microsoft's standing, and stop eroding customer confidence is doing what they did with Windows 7, and open-beta each operating system for 90 days to get feedback on what people like and dislike. Had they done this back with Windows XP, we might never have seen the terrible Vista.
Or they could stop doing things halfheartedly. Some of the main problems with Vista included UAC which was basically trying to be like sudo for Windows. Unfortunately it didn't really change anything because people are A) So used to clicking "yes" to every single dialogue box and B) there was -no- rhyme or reason to why some things required admin privileges. With Ubuntu I can basically figure out why Synaptic needs my password. On the other hand if I would see no reason why something like The GIMP would need my password (and for the record it doesn't) but some things in Windows that are basically equivalent to the GIMP in needed privileges somehow need to be run as admin to work. No reason given, just run it as admin.
And Vista was not Windows ME. Vista was stable, ME was not.
And both were useless. A car that constantly breaks down is just as bad as a car that won't go faster than 45 MPH. One you couldn't do work because it was always crashing, the other you couldn't do work because it took 5 mins just for the stupid thing to respond to a mouse movement.
The Xbox/Xbox360 development must have hired the same people who worked on Windows ME. Pushed unfinished, poorly tested hardware out the door to meet some business agenda.
But on the other hand they won. Yeah, the first 360s were crap quality, yeah they had about a 50% failure rate and would eat disks. But on the other hand a heck lot more of them were sold than PS3s. The 360 is fast becoming the PS2 of this generation, lots of exclusive games and a lot of quality games. The PS3 is in dead last and chances are will be the loser this generation. Yes, the 360 can't really beat the Wii, but they beat Sony this time.
The problem isn't the techs at MS. I've talked to many employees of Microsoft, they aren't idiots, they aren't the "bottom barrel" code monkeys, heck some of them even read /. and know more Linux and UNIX than the average Linux sysadmin. The problem is management. Its gotten so bad that in general the people working on Office don't even talk to the guys developing the OS, the OS guys don't talk to the guys making the UI, etc. Microsoft has gotten so big and vast that the people who should be in close contact with one another aren't. Things are developed independently and I believe that they even have multiple projects going on for the same thing and one gets picked and the others get scrapped. Its little wonder nothing gets done.
Lets see, when you have a pretty much bankrupt state (California), a bridge that is too necessary to fully replace without inconveniencing many people, the fact that it isn't exactly in a stable environment, with wind, rain and corrosion everywhere is it any surprise that a bridge that has been up for over 70 years needs some emergency repairs?
Because it would allow for a language and framework that works on every single OS. Look at Java, even though it has numerous faults, the fact that it is now open source and ported to just about every single device means that it is used for lots of cross-platform programs. Flash could be the same way if they ported the player to every OS and device. By open sourcing the Flash player they would A) save money in development B) allow the porting of it to various platforms and C) Improve sales for their development program.
I don't think though that Nintendo could do that without basically killing the DS. I think they tried to do that with the GBA, DS and GameCube systems all at once, but the GBA was then seen as obsolete and supported faded from it. Nintendo also attempted this with the SNES, GameBoy and Virtual Boy but the Virtual Boy failed to find a niche and failed in the marketplace. Also, I don't see any upcoming technologies that would work without taking from the marketshare of the DS. For example, captive touchscreens are where a lot of development has taken place in recent years, but I don't see how that would work without destroying the DS in the process. Motion control doesn't work very well on portable gaming systems. About the only thing I can see Nintendo doing is basically making a Game Boy Advance and putting captive touchscreens where the controls were and allowing that to dynamically change the controls based on the action on the main screen.
There also hasn't been any other game company that has succeeded in keeping 3 systems alive without one as the successor to the other. I'm not confident that Nintendo is able to pull that off.
Because Flash is now a crucial part of the internet. Until HTML 5 comes out with video standards and the like, Flash is about the only way you can embed videos in sites without ruining the layout of the site with a third-party media player and without your users searching for codecs.
If Adobe would simply release the source to the Flash player, they could -save- money, have full platform compatibility and perhaps make more money with the Flash creation products. Think of it this way, if there was a fast language (most apps in Flash seem to load, run and interact faster than Java) that you could truly write once and run anywhere, it would be a hit. Flash could be this language if Adobe just opens up the player. Until they open it up, I expect them to do a good job and port it to every single OS or platform where it is allowed because it is good for business for them and helps that platform (which in all honesty Adobe should want to kill Windows as quickly as possible and move the world to OS X and Linux).
And Android (not just Droid, or Verizon, but Android) is doing that. Right now the iPhone is tied into AT&T, if you are on T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon you can't use the iPhone without some difficulty. Android will eventually be available no matter which phone company you prefer. Then there is the variety of hardware. Someone who doesn't like using a touchscreen for typing won't like the iPhone, yet the G1, Droid and other Android phones have physical keyboards and if you prefer an all touchscreen phone the Magic and Hero phones have that.
The ability not to have to jump ship for the "latest and greatest" might be a huge feature of Android, especially if you are tied into a contract. While some phones will be carrier exclusive without a doubt, Android itself is cross-network. Android's power is not int he G1, Magic, Droid, Hero or any other phone but in the fact it can easily saturate the market better than any other platform currently offered. When even "dumb phones" can run the apps you have written for Android, it is going to reach more of the market than Apple's high-end exclusive offerings and make it easier than "jump through hoops to get it to run without using expensive data plans" problems that JavaME has.
So, Hulu and the content rights holders would have to come to advertising agreements in all of the other nations being catered to while at the same time, trying not to piss off the the broadcasters in those areas too much (after all, the syndicated content -does- appear on TV much later, once these smaller broadcasters can actually afford it - but what advertisers are -they- going to attract if everybody's already seen it for free via Hulu?)... so good luck with that.
But there are still many other shows that don't make it past American, European or Japanese shores at all. For example Family Guy is only broadcast in the US as far as I know and it has been broadcast since 1999, I think it is safe to say it won't be syndicated outside of the US anytime soon. Other shows are totally destroyed in "localization" most anime series are completely ruined when brought to American or European countries. There are many anime fans who would much rather watch the original with subtitles than with sub-par voice acting and many references, scenes or entire characters removed or changed.
Plus, look at how entire markets have been opened by people watching non-native TV. Anime and manga were virtually unknown to most people 15 years ago, but have since become household names. The internet and copyright infringement really opened up those markets. That never would have happened if all the sites were similar to Hulu.
Dear content producers, on behalf of most of the world could you please do us a favor and release things globally? In case you haven't looked online, there are many sites where you can get things for free online (http://thepiratebay.org/) most of us though would really just like the support the creators. If you won't sell the product where your fans are, how are we supposed to support you? I can understand physical DVD sales or broadcasting it via television because that costs money, however the internet allows you to distribute content for -free- without the overhead of needing to translate, ship or alter any media. Even better have the fans do the work -for you- if bandwidth is a problem make it be P2P, if translating it into people's language is a problem allow fansubs. As for the "cultural barrier" many of your fans are educated enough to know that there is a difference in culture and will look up, or accept the cultural difference without being offended. This isn't advice just for American TV being released outside of America but also to anime companies and other companies releasing things globally.
Bottom line. We, the people who don't live in the country where you are currently producing, want to -buy- your content or at least look at the ads. If you won't let us, fine. We will simply pirate it. But chances are you want to make money right? So don't treat us like second-class citizens, we have money just like "your part" of the world does and no, we don't like getting episodes 1-2 months later than the rest of the world and no we don't like being shut off of a service that would allow us to watch TV while supporting the producers. If you must, just block non-American IPs but don't be idiots and start blocking VPNs and other ways to block your fans from trying to legitimately support you. We have other options, but you have an opportunity with the internet to allow us to pay for content. But if you don't want our money, fine. We will go back to pirating your shows.