By the way, I have nothing against Linux. I love Linux. I wouldn't use anything else for running a server (I have 3 that run on Gentoo)... it's the people that use it just to fit in that I can't stand.
"Now go back to using your Windows: Linux Edition (sorry, I mean Ubuntu) and stop turning every thread you can into a baseless battle of the OSes."
Why have YOU turned this into a battle of OSes? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Ubuntu. It might not be your distro of choice but for many thousands of people, it is exactly that. The fact that it is user friendly and works out-of-the-box makes it more popular but no less of an OS than whatever you might choose to use.
It's just that it's typically Ubuntu users that start the OS battles. And those people only use Linux so they can fit in with their hacker friends, dis micro$haft and feel all epix leatsauce, but they use Ubuntu so they don't actually have to know anything.
Microsoft would gladly make a walled garden OS for EVERYONE to use if they thought they could get away with it.
Companies do what makes good business sense. If Microsoft could get away with making a walled-garden OS and they thought it would be more successful than their current product, then of course they would. But they would lose me as a customer, and they would probably lose much of the rest of their current customer base, so they wouldn't. What's your point?
Now go back to using your Windows: Linux Edition (sorry, I mean Ubuntu) and stop turning every thread you can into a baseless battle of the OSes.
Ah, but Australia has never really had a problem with firearms-related crime. As soon as that picked up, the government severely cracked down on gun ownership. And even still, if you think a criminal in Australia that wants a gun isn't going to be able to get one, you are sadly mistaken. In America, however, guns have been owned by law-abiding citizens and criminals alike since the very beginning of this country. It would be completely impossible to make guns "hard to get" for anybody but those who do not wish to break the law.
Just because gangs in Australia don't have a need for guns and are perfectly content with using knives, bottles, and clubs to kill each other doesn't mean they CAN'T obtain guns if they so chose. They may be difficult and expensive to obtain because of the low gun ownership and import rates that Australia has always had, but it's certainly not impossible.
Limits on how many guns a non-dealer may purchase in a given time period. E.g., one gun per month per adult household member.
Waiting periods on gun purchases. If you buy a gun today, you can't pick it up until a week from now.
Close the fucking gun show loophole already; make all gun sales require a background check of the buyer.
None of these would prevent law-abiding citizens from owning guns. But guess what? The NRA is rabidly opposed to all of them.
1. And what's the point of that exactly? Somebody who is going to commit a crime with a gun only needs one gun.
2. California (my place of residence) has a 10-day waiting period on all firearm purchases, but even with this foolproof method of stopping gun crimes, people still get shot in California all the time. That article, posted two hours ago, was on the first page of a Google News search for "shooting".
3. What gun show loophole? You've been drinking too much of the anti-gun koolaid that seems to assume that gun shows have private parties peddling their wares.
And I'd take facing someone with a knife over a gun any day.
But what's to stop a criminal from possessing guns? The entire Slashdot community seems to hate every governmental intrusion of privacy and law enforcement getting all up in your grill, so how do you suggest the government enforces a gun ban? If it's illegal to own guns then anybody who owns a gun is automatically a criminal and somebody we should look out for. I'd take having a gun over not having a gun when facing anybody with anything. Most gun-related crimes are perpetrated by somebody who would never pull the trigger anyway, and most murders performed with a gun could easily be performed with a number of other weapons or non-weapons that no government could conceivably ban. The world is a dangerous place, and I'd rather feel safe in knowing that everybody has a gun than questioning who does while I don't.
and if you are a citizen of the United States of America
Actually, I'm not. It was a hypothetical question.
That's irrelevant, because you participated in a scenario involving the United States, so your hypothetical question involves you hypothetically being a United States citizen.
Why would I help the government? Are they going to pay me? If not, it's hardly "too good to be true", more like doing their work for them.
Why would you help the government? Doing their work for them? Last I checked, this was a government by the People for the People, and if you are a citizen of the United States of America, you are a part of that. It's one thing if you argue against this initiative because it's not something you would like your tax dollars spent on, but to insinuate that the government is using the citizens to get "free" work out of them is almost offensive.
Now, if this was a mandatory program, that would be a completely different story, but this is a voluntary way that you may apply to take part in of crowdsourcing data about the ISPs that we all know have been guilty of little (and some not so little) lies about the capabilities of their networks in a way that doesn't cost a fuckshitton of money and can be constantly monitored for realtime results.
And because mites are smaller, cell phone radiation must have an even greater effect on them. Therefore, cell phones kill mites at a greater rate than bees, therefore cell phones save bees!!
I'm really looking forward to the comments. When BP lets the oil spill continue day after day, the/. crowd goes asking why we let them handle it at all, after all they're the ones responsible for the mess.
Now Google has a mess, and is doing an internal audit. I'm curious if we will apply the same reasoning, or a different standard. And what justifications we'll see for it.
I'm honestly shocked that you would be comparing Google's little accident to BP's massive catastrophe that could potentially have long-standing affect on the entire planet.
I'm still not buying a god damned radiating device to hold up beside my head.
I hope you realize that the radiation emitted from cell phones is not ionizing radiation (which is what's emitted by radioactive substances). And the electromagnetic radiation that cell phones emit is somewhere in the range of 200 milliwatts. The radio tower that is a 5 minute walk from my house is probably pushing 10-15,000 watts. There's towers like that all over the place. There's cell towers that run at 1000 watts or so all over the place. There's satellites out in space that are beaming their electromagnetic radiation right at us in a focused beam. If you're truly worried about radiation poisoning and getting cancer from radio waves, then a cell phone is the least of your worries. Just because it's right next to your brain doesn't mean it's subjecting you to more radiation than the hundred transmission towers that you're probably absorbing radiation from this very moment.
There's also the sun. That's right, every time you go outside you better wear a polarized globe over your head because you're absorbing huge amounts of radiation from that which gives you life.
Every single Call of Duty game developed by Treyarch has been utter shit or horribly screwed up in some way or another and touted as "innovation". For this reason, I'm super pissed that it had to be Infinity Ward that got boned by Activision, because they're the only respectable developers affiliated with the entire franchise.
Sure, this last game has some problems, but it's really not as bad as people make it out to be. Is there really THAT MUCH benefit to having dedicated servers as opposed to matchmaking? It's only so often that you get in a laggy game. The only problem I find with it is that they didn't think it through completely. We could really use some cheat reporting, votekick, and "This Guy Is A Terrible Host Don't Let Him Ever Host Again" buttons. That's really it, though.
The maps and street-view are understandable because they are for the most part static and do not change, but people move in and out of buildings and change things all the time. It's not rocket science to determine that corporations and branches of Starbuck's will have their wireless networks, so why the unecessary invasion of privacy like sniffing MAC addresses? There are other ways to get the location of public access points and the like without having to sniff private residential networks.
Because it's not for locating public wireless access points. It's about using the location of ANY Wi-Fi network that's broadcasting an SSID (secure or insecure) to assist in geolocation. Google's Street View vans scan for SSIDs and detect signal strength to essentially triangulate the location of every SSID-broadcasting wireless router, and they can use that information with Google Maps Mobile and perhaps other applications to help your device locate you when there's a weak or inexistant GPS signal.
I'll bet it's possible with Javascript/AJAX... but there's still the fact that such code runs unsecured in the browser and can be modified in any way by anybody. That's not very good DRM. Flash is definitely better (from the content-producers' perspective) than Flash.
If the system works, there's nothing to worry about.
But if it doesn't, then you just knowingly shut off power to your entire datacenter. You can't do that. You'd need scheduled downtime where you assume that the entire system will fail... and there's many applications where downtime is not an option. A system like I described above has almost no chance whatsoever of failure except in the event of massive catastrophe in which the building's structure is severely damaged, or equipment overheats, batteries explode, and the generators blow head gaskets. Those are not things you can discover or predict in procedural testing.
Well no shit. Of course you test before you go live, but you can't exactly just shut off utility power to test things after you're up and running. And the generators are tested every week, but they can't do an actual live test and force the datacenter to run off genny power. They have a couple load banks outside next to the generators which are essentially massive toaster ovens the size of small U-Haul vans. They use those to put load on the generators.
Still, though, you cannot test the ENTIRE power backup system on a mission-critical application, and if the system is designed right and has proper real-time monitoring equipment, you won't NEED to.
Amazon for not load-testing their emergency backup power on a regular basis, not having more than one connection the power grid, and the power grid for not having redundancies.
It's not a matter of testing. These systems aren't things that you can just "test", because what if there is a problem? Then you have intentionally shut off power to your entire datacenter. Otherwise you could have scheduled downtime and just assume everything will fail, so have everybody shut off their servers in advance just in case, but then how often can you do that?
No, it's a problem with the fundamental design of the power backup systems. I know somebody in charge of the electrical end of constructing CaliforniaISO's new headquarters and datacenter. They manage California's entire power grid. They have two redundant utility power connections that stay separate all the way to each server rack which each have two power inputs and a fail-over switch. Each side runs off utility IN PARALLEL to battery backup. If utility fails, no switching needs to be made because power will already be running through battery backup, and can stay that way for 24 hours per side. As soon as the utility fails, both backup generators will start and will be able to power the entire building within two minutes and I think they each have enough fuel for two weeks. Each generator is tied into separate sides of the power system, and each has their own separate facilities and their own separate fuel tanks the size of tanker trucks. Each rack will also have a local UPS unit that can keep the power flowing for about 10 minutes... enough to at least get the servers shut off safely.
That, my friend, is how you set up a UPS system. No testing required, because the entire system can't possibly fail short of some(body/thing) getting around the incredible building security and destroying cables or equipment. But no amount of testing or redundancy could possibly foresee or stop that. Pretty much the only fail points would be the switches in each rack, but the entire datacenter also has multiple points of data and processing redundancy making that a non-issue as well.
You cannot add information once it's been thrown away, you can only simulate it
Right, but a fourth pixel allows you to better reproduce what information does exist. The way I understand it is that the Quattro isn't simulating data, it's simulating Yellow pixel data in a way that helps it to better reproduce yellowy colors. In the review it did specifically say that a very gold scene in Doctor Who was much more vibrant and gold than on the Samsung model, and that skin-tones are more realistically depicted. It's no surprise to me that a fourth pixel (of ANY color, really) would add extra precision and vibrancy to nearly every scene.
... but I'm genuinely interested: What exactly does a publisher of e-books "publish"?
I'm serious. You've written the book, you've put it in whatever form you decided on. I understand that you need some vehicle to distribute it -- isn't that what Apple and Amazon are doing? So what is your publisher doing? What value does he/she/it add?
iTunes only works with established record companies. They will not distribute indy music without one. I'm assuming the same goes for their book store, and I don't know what Amazon's requirements are.
But Valve doesn't make any money keeping the master servers running for Counter-Strike players. Microsoft was charging a hefty monthly fee just for access to the Halo 2 matchmaking servers, and they still shut it down!
How many games support XBOX Live? Tons. A hundred, perhaps? Maybe not that many, but you get the point. You've been paying $15/mo (right?) for XBOX Live since you first bought your XBOX and started playing online. Back then, there weren't nearly as many games as there are today. Halo 2 is 6 years old. They no longer update it. Hardly anybody ever plays it. It's dead weight on the XBOX Live network.
As the number of games grows, the number of servers needed grows. The amount of power and bandwidth needed grows. The amount of maintenance needed grows. The number of moderators and support staff needed grows. Has your monthly XBOX Live bill grown? No. You aren't paying a "hefty monthly fee just for access to the Halo 2 matchmaking servers," you're paying a hefty monthly fee for access to XBOX Live. Would you rather they charged money per game that you want to play online? $10 per month per game. Or maybe an hourly fee? Options like those are the only way to keep a rapidly-growing system like XBOX Live sustainable without dropping support for 6 year old games that nobody plays anymore.
You could also say that more people play than before, but that's not enough. Let's say for the sake of simplicity that 100,000 people bought Halo 2 and started paying $15/mo for XBOX Live. What happens when Halo 3 comes out and 100,000 people buy it? A good 95,000 of those people probably already own Halo 2 and therefore already pay $15/mo for XBOX Live. So that's 5,000 new subscriptions for 100,000 new copies of the game.
Yes, it sucks that they're dropping support for Halo 2 for the 500 of you that still play it. Get with the times, bro.
I bought counter strike back in 1998, but I still pull it out and play it from time to time. Hell, it's Valve's most popular game to date*, even today. To top that off, Valve upgraded me to the Valve Platinum Pack for using the HL CD key that came with the copy of HL I bought just for Counter-Strike. The only thing Microsoft supports beyond the scheduled lifespan of the product is old Windows and Office updates as near as I can tell, never games.
Valve doesn't run game servers (okay, they run a few, but it's not many). Game servers are paid for by the players. All Valve needs to do to keep Counter-Strike running is keep the master browser servers in operation, which I believe are exactly the same system between ALL Valve and Source games... so as long as Valve decides to support the browser for one of their games, the browser will remain running for all of their games (as well as third-party Source mods). It is costing Microsoft, however, insane amounts of money to keep the XBOX Live servers going for the original Halo while they are making a pittance along the lines of income from it, and they just don't want to support it anymore. You specifically stated that Counter-Strike is still Valve's most popular game, which is basically lending support for Microsoft in this debate, because Halo is not popular anymore. Who still plays the original Halo? Nobody that I know.
(Before you accuse me of being a Microsoft fanboy, know that I love Valve and I hate consoles in general. I'm writing this because your logic is flawed.)
I don't think the South Park guys are pussies, unless you think they should break their contract with Viacom and REALLY make a statement. I suppose they could -- they have enough money by now -- but they probably don't relish the idea of spending the next decade in court writing checks to lawyers. Viacom are the real pussies here. They allow the South Park guys to insult every religion under the sun, alienating powerful political figures and advertising partners, but fold like a cheap suit when confronted with a handful of Muslim extremists that don't even have a base of operations on American soil. Pathetic.
+1 on the 7.62. Freedom isn't free as they say. Try and force your religious beliefs on me with violence and you'll discover that violence is a two way street.
Well for starters, it was Comedy Central that inserted the bleeps. They didn't even tell the South Park crew to do it... they just did it before it went on air. Also, these Muslim extremists that posted the threats are based in New York. But... if [some major newspaper i dont remember] is right, the leader of this group was born Jewish by the name of Joseph Cohen before he converted to Islam and changed his name to some Muslim name. He also has pictures of himself with guns and bombs strapped to him on this site. Basically, he's a wannabe terrorist fuckhead and should not be taken seriously except in the case of throwing his stupid ass in jail.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, I have nothing against Linux. I love Linux. I wouldn't use anything else for running a server (I have 3 that run on Gentoo)... it's the people that use it just to fit in that I can't stand.
"Now go back to using your Windows: Linux Edition (sorry, I mean Ubuntu) and stop turning every thread you can into a baseless battle of the OSes."
Why have YOU turned this into a battle of OSes? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Ubuntu. It might not be your distro of choice but for many thousands of people, it is exactly that. The fact that it is user friendly and works out-of-the-box makes it more popular but no less of an OS than whatever you might choose to use.
It's just that it's typically Ubuntu users that start the OS battles. And those people only use Linux so they can fit in with their hacker friends, dis micro$haft and feel all epix leatsauce, but they use Ubuntu so they don't actually have to know anything.
And you know it's true.
Microsoft would gladly make a walled garden OS for EVERYONE to use if they thought they could get away with it.
Companies do what makes good business sense. If Microsoft could get away with making a walled-garden OS and they thought it would be more successful than their current product, then of course they would. But they would lose me as a customer, and they would probably lose much of the rest of their current customer base, so they wouldn't. What's your point?
Now go back to using your Windows: Linux Edition (sorry, I mean Ubuntu) and stop turning every thread you can into a baseless battle of the OSes.
Ah, but Australia has never really had a problem with firearms-related crime. As soon as that picked up, the government severely cracked down on gun ownership. And even still, if you think a criminal in Australia that wants a gun isn't going to be able to get one, you are sadly mistaken. In America, however, guns have been owned by law-abiding citizens and criminals alike since the very beginning of this country. It would be completely impossible to make guns "hard to get" for anybody but those who do not wish to break the law.
Just because gangs in Australia don't have a need for guns and are perfectly content with using knives, bottles, and clubs to kill each other doesn't mean they CAN'T obtain guns if they so chose. They may be difficult and expensive to obtain because of the low gun ownership and import rates that Australia has always had, but it's certainly not impossible.
None of these would prevent law-abiding citizens from owning guns. But guess what? The NRA is rabidly opposed to all of them.
1. And what's the point of that exactly? Somebody who is going to commit a crime with a gun only needs one gun.
2. California (my place of residence) has a 10-day waiting period on all firearm purchases, but even with this foolproof method of stopping gun crimes, people still get shot in California all the time. That article, posted two hours ago, was on the first page of a Google News search for "shooting".
3. What gun show loophole? You've been drinking too much of the anti-gun koolaid that seems to assume that gun shows have private parties peddling their wares.
And I'd take facing someone with a knife over a gun any day.
But what's to stop a criminal from possessing guns? The entire Slashdot community seems to hate every governmental intrusion of privacy and law enforcement getting all up in your grill, so how do you suggest the government enforces a gun ban? If it's illegal to own guns then anybody who owns a gun is automatically a criminal and somebody we should look out for. I'd take having a gun over not having a gun when facing anybody with anything. Most gun-related crimes are perpetrated by somebody who would never pull the trigger anyway, and most murders performed with a gun could easily be performed with a number of other weapons or non-weapons that no government could conceivably ban. The world is a dangerous place, and I'd rather feel safe in knowing that everybody has a gun than questioning who does while I don't.
and if you are a citizen of the United States of America
Actually, I'm not. It was a hypothetical question.
That's irrelevant, because you participated in a scenario involving the United States, so your hypothetical question involves you hypothetically being a United States citizen.
While factually correct, your post goes against the narrative we're trying to push here. "Us" vs. "Them" doesn't work too well if there is no "them".
But the point is clear. I guess I should have put "them" in quotes as well.
Why would I help the government? Are they going to pay me? If not, it's hardly "too good to be true", more like doing their work for them.
Why would you help the government? Doing their work for them? Last I checked, this was a government by the People for the People, and if you are a citizen of the United States of America, you are a part of that. It's one thing if you argue against this initiative because it's not something you would like your tax dollars spent on, but to insinuate that the government is using the citizens to get "free" work out of them is almost offensive.
Now, if this was a mandatory program, that would be a completely different story, but this is a voluntary way that you may apply to take part in of crowdsourcing data about the ISPs that we all know have been guilty of little (and some not so little) lies about the capabilities of their networks in a way that doesn't cost a fuckshitton of money and can be constantly monitored for realtime results.
What exactly do you use it for in the music studio? I can't think of any useful task it could perform.
It sure takes up less room on the mixer than a television.
I haven't raised bees in a while, but I remember "mites" being the really big problem affecting most hives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor)
And because mites are smaller, cell phone radiation must have an even greater effect on them. Therefore, cell phones kill mites at a greater rate than bees, therefore cell phones save bees!!
Save the bees! Build more cell towers!
Psychologists call this "systematic desensitization" when it's used for phobias and other irational fears.
And goatse.
I'm really looking forward to the comments. When BP lets the oil spill continue day after day, the /. crowd goes asking why we let them handle it at all, after all they're the ones responsible for the mess.
Now Google has a mess, and is doing an internal audit. I'm curious if we will apply the same reasoning, or a different standard. And what justifications we'll see for it.
I'm honestly shocked that you would be comparing Google's little accident to BP's massive catastrophe that could potentially have long-standing affect on the entire planet.
I'm still not buying a god damned radiating device to hold up beside my head.
I hope you realize that the radiation emitted from cell phones is not ionizing radiation (which is what's emitted by radioactive substances). And the electromagnetic radiation that cell phones emit is somewhere in the range of 200 milliwatts. The radio tower that is a 5 minute walk from my house is probably pushing 10-15,000 watts. There's towers like that all over the place. There's cell towers that run at 1000 watts or so all over the place. There's satellites out in space that are beaming their electromagnetic radiation right at us in a focused beam. If you're truly worried about radiation poisoning and getting cancer from radio waves, then a cell phone is the least of your worries. Just because it's right next to your brain doesn't mean it's subjecting you to more radiation than the hundred transmission towers that you're probably absorbing radiation from this very moment.
There's also the sun. That's right, every time you go outside you better wear a polarized globe over your head because you're absorbing huge amounts of radiation from that which gives you life.
I hope this doesn't give you nightmares.
Every single Call of Duty game developed by Treyarch has been utter shit or horribly screwed up in some way or another and touted as "innovation". For this reason, I'm super pissed that it had to be Infinity Ward that got boned by Activision, because they're the only respectable developers affiliated with the entire franchise.
Sure, this last game has some problems, but it's really not as bad as people make it out to be. Is there really THAT MUCH benefit to having dedicated servers as opposed to matchmaking? It's only so often that you get in a laggy game. The only problem I find with it is that they didn't think it through completely. We could really use some cheat reporting, votekick, and "This Guy Is A Terrible Host Don't Let Him Ever Host Again" buttons. That's really it, though.
The maps and street-view are understandable because they are for the most part static and do not change, but people move in and out of buildings and change things all the time. It's not rocket science to determine that corporations and branches of Starbuck's will have their wireless networks, so why the unecessary invasion of privacy like sniffing MAC addresses? There are other ways to get the location of public access points and the like without having to sniff private residential networks.
Because it's not for locating public wireless access points. It's about using the location of ANY Wi-Fi network that's broadcasting an SSID (secure or insecure) to assist in geolocation. Google's Street View vans scan for SSIDs and detect signal strength to essentially triangulate the location of every SSID-broadcasting wireless router, and they can use that information with Google Maps Mobile and perhaps other applications to help your device locate you when there's a weak or inexistant GPS signal.
Also, ffs, learn to use HTML tags.
Does HTML5 video offer these options?
I'll bet it's possible with Javascript/AJAX... but there's still the fact that such code runs unsecured in the browser and can be modified in any way by anybody. That's not very good DRM. Flash is definitely better (from the content-producers' perspective) than Flash.
If the system works, there's nothing to worry about.
But if it doesn't, then you just knowingly shut off power to your entire datacenter. You can't do that. You'd need scheduled downtime where you assume that the entire system will fail... and there's many applications where downtime is not an option. A system like I described above has almost no chance whatsoever of failure except in the event of massive catastrophe in which the building's structure is severely damaged, or equipment overheats, batteries explode, and the generators blow head gaskets. Those are not things you can discover or predict in procedural testing.
Test it before you go live, if you have to.
Well no shit. Of course you test before you go live, but you can't exactly just shut off utility power to test things after you're up and running. And the generators are tested every week, but they can't do an actual live test and force the datacenter to run off genny power. They have a couple load banks outside next to the generators which are essentially massive toaster ovens the size of small U-Haul vans. They use those to put load on the generators.
Still, though, you cannot test the ENTIRE power backup system on a mission-critical application, and if the system is designed right and has proper real-time monitoring equipment, you won't NEED to.
Amazon for not load-testing their emergency backup power on a regular basis, not having more than one connection the power grid, and the power grid for not having redundancies.
It's not a matter of testing. These systems aren't things that you can just "test", because what if there is a problem? Then you have intentionally shut off power to your entire datacenter. Otherwise you could have scheduled downtime and just assume everything will fail, so have everybody shut off their servers in advance just in case, but then how often can you do that?
No, it's a problem with the fundamental design of the power backup systems. I know somebody in charge of the electrical end of constructing CaliforniaISO's new headquarters and datacenter. They manage California's entire power grid. They have two redundant utility power connections that stay separate all the way to each server rack which each have two power inputs and a fail-over switch. Each side runs off utility IN PARALLEL to battery backup. If utility fails, no switching needs to be made because power will already be running through battery backup, and can stay that way for 24 hours per side. As soon as the utility fails, both backup generators will start and will be able to power the entire building within two minutes and I think they each have enough fuel for two weeks. Each generator is tied into separate sides of the power system, and each has their own separate facilities and their own separate fuel tanks the size of tanker trucks. Each rack will also have a local UPS unit that can keep the power flowing for about 10 minutes... enough to at least get the servers shut off safely.
That, my friend, is how you set up a UPS system. No testing required, because the entire system can't possibly fail short of some(body/thing) getting around the incredible building security and destroying cables or equipment. But no amount of testing or redundancy could possibly foresee or stop that. Pretty much the only fail points would be the switches in each rack, but the entire datacenter also has multiple points of data and processing redundancy making that a non-issue as well.
You cannot add information once it's been thrown away, you can only simulate it
Right, but a fourth pixel allows you to better reproduce what information does exist. The way I understand it is that the Quattro isn't simulating data, it's simulating Yellow pixel data in a way that helps it to better reproduce yellowy colors. In the review it did specifically say that a very gold scene in Doctor Who was much more vibrant and gold than on the Samsung model, and that skin-tones are more realistically depicted. It's no surprise to me that a fourth pixel (of ANY color, really) would add extra precision and vibrancy to nearly every scene.
... but I'm genuinely interested: What exactly does a publisher of e-books "publish"?
I'm serious. You've written the book, you've put it in whatever form you decided on. I understand that you need some vehicle to distribute it -- isn't that what Apple and Amazon are doing? So what is your publisher doing? What value does he/she/it add?
iTunes only works with established record companies. They will not distribute indy music without one. I'm assuming the same goes for their book store, and I don't know what Amazon's requirements are.
But Valve doesn't make any money keeping the master servers running for Counter-Strike players. Microsoft was charging a hefty monthly fee just for access to the Halo 2 matchmaking servers, and they still shut it down!
How many games support XBOX Live? Tons. A hundred, perhaps? Maybe not that many, but you get the point. You've been paying $15/mo (right?) for XBOX Live since you first bought your XBOX and started playing online. Back then, there weren't nearly as many games as there are today. Halo 2 is 6 years old. They no longer update it. Hardly anybody ever plays it. It's dead weight on the XBOX Live network.
As the number of games grows, the number of servers needed grows. The amount of power and bandwidth needed grows. The amount of maintenance needed grows. The number of moderators and support staff needed grows. Has your monthly XBOX Live bill grown? No. You aren't paying a "hefty monthly fee just for access to the Halo 2 matchmaking servers," you're paying a hefty monthly fee for access to XBOX Live. Would you rather they charged money per game that you want to play online? $10 per month per game. Or maybe an hourly fee? Options like those are the only way to keep a rapidly-growing system like XBOX Live sustainable without dropping support for 6 year old games that nobody plays anymore.
You could also say that more people play than before, but that's not enough. Let's say for the sake of simplicity that 100,000 people bought Halo 2 and started paying $15/mo for XBOX Live. What happens when Halo 3 comes out and 100,000 people buy it? A good 95,000 of those people probably already own Halo 2 and therefore already pay $15/mo for XBOX Live. So that's 5,000 new subscriptions for 100,000 new copies of the game.
Yes, it sucks that they're dropping support for Halo 2 for the 500 of you that still play it. Get with the times, bro.
I bought counter strike back in 1998, but I still pull it out and play it from time to time. Hell, it's Valve's most popular game to date*, even today. To top that off, Valve upgraded me to the Valve Platinum Pack for using the HL CD key that came with the copy of HL I bought just for Counter-Strike. The only thing Microsoft supports beyond the scheduled lifespan of the product is old Windows and Office updates as near as I can tell, never games.
Valve doesn't run game servers (okay, they run a few, but it's not many). Game servers are paid for by the players. All Valve needs to do to keep Counter-Strike running is keep the master browser servers in operation, which I believe are exactly the same system between ALL Valve and Source games... so as long as Valve decides to support the browser for one of their games, the browser will remain running for all of their games (as well as third-party Source mods). It is costing Microsoft, however, insane amounts of money to keep the XBOX Live servers going for the original Halo while they are making a pittance along the lines of income from it, and they just don't want to support it anymore. You specifically stated that Counter-Strike is still Valve's most popular game, which is basically lending support for Microsoft in this debate, because Halo is not popular anymore. Who still plays the original Halo? Nobody that I know.
(Before you accuse me of being a Microsoft fanboy, know that I love Valve and I hate consoles in general. I'm writing this because your logic is flawed.)
I don't think the South Park guys are pussies, unless you think they should break their contract with Viacom and REALLY make a statement. I suppose they could -- they have enough money by now -- but they probably don't relish the idea of spending the next decade in court writing checks to lawyers. Viacom are the real pussies here. They allow the South Park guys to insult every religion under the sun, alienating powerful political figures and advertising partners, but fold like a cheap suit when confronted with a handful of Muslim extremists that don't even have a base of operations on American soil. Pathetic.
+1 on the 7.62. Freedom isn't free as they say. Try and force your religious beliefs on me with violence and you'll discover that violence is a two way street.
Well for starters, it was Comedy Central that inserted the bleeps. They didn't even tell the South Park crew to do it... they just did it before it went on air. Also, these Muslim extremists that posted the threats are based in New York. But... if [some major newspaper i dont remember] is right, the leader of this group was born Jewish by the name of Joseph Cohen before he converted to Islam and changed his name to some Muslim name. He also has pictures of himself with guns and bombs strapped to him on this site. Basically, he's a wannabe terrorist fuckhead and should not be taken seriously except in the case of throwing his stupid ass in jail.