Ever since the time that gasoline hit $4 here in the US, I've been keeping an eye on the DOT's Traffic Volume Trends. It seems to me that, once Americans realized how much gas could cost (and will permanently cost, eventually), they also realized how much auto travel is superfluous. In particular This chart of the 12-month average for all roads shows a clear pullback in miles driven. Perhaps some of this could be attributable to people being more efficient in their travel; taking care of multiple errands at once, using public transportation much more, etc. Certainly the downturn in the economy has an impact, too.
But then again, I knew that was the situation going in...I saw the writing on the wall (and the contract) from the git-go. I didn't do this to build an empire, I wanted to tell this story...and that's worth more than anything else.
And this is why there's so much dreck in the movies/TV. Who the hell wants to give away their best creative ideas to a bunch of corporate executives, and never recieve anything in return except for the chance to "tell a story"?
Kudos to JMS for doing so; I feel I should mail him some money directly, rather than buy the DVDs, however.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. Those contracts are usually long and very hard to read, but they are the terms under which you receive their service, so you need to know them, or prepared to be unpleasantly surprised (which is most peoples' method, apparently).
Actually, forcing myself to read these contracts has been a great deterrent to signing up for things I don't really need.
reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective
emphasis mine
Um... no, not quite the pilot's perspective. (Arguably, it's actually a better picture of the terrain beneath the nose of the aircraft than the pilot sees. But it's not the pilot's perspective- at least, I hope not!)
There are much bigger issues than graphics in this "Console/PC" debate. The really big issues are things like user interface and game controls. Take Oblivion for example- that game's interface was significantly altered to accommodate console play, which made it a sub-optimal for the PC: an overly simplistic UI and relatively poor use of screen real estate.
PC gamers expect a lot more from their games- private servers, LAN play, mods, etc.; and as the Modern Warfare 2 debacle showed us, game companies are showing less & less love for the PC. There's tons more money (and less hassle) to be make on the consoles. That's a MUCH bigger hurdle than "Console graphics are the holding PCs back!"
What's really interesting to me is how MMOGs haven't really made it to the console. I think that's because of the console's revenue model, which really only supports "throwaway" games with a very short life span. You'd think a subscription-style game would have amazing appeal for console game-makers, but where are the games?
Microtransations are a better concept for MMOGs. Rather than take a level/spell/item away if you don't pay, they let you buy that thing whenever you wish.
"Pay $X to continue (faster)" feels a lot more fair than "Give us $X or we'll nerf you."
Not only that, but using Drupal means you have a built-in security/programming team, constantly updating, improving, looking for bugs, etc. If you write your own software, YOU have to maintain it, by yourself. Are you as good as the Drupal devs? (I know I'm not)
The Federal Highway Administration is already suffering shortage of funds due to fewer vehicle miles driven. There's been talk of more toll roads, increasing the gas tax, etc.
As I see it, encouraging people to drive even less will further decrease the revenue collected for road repair- which could mean fewer repairs, more time between repairs, and/or an incentive to raise the gas tax or invent new "usage fees". This could end up increasing the total cost- even though you're paying less for insurance, you're paying more for gas, tolls, etc.
I've always assumed that saying 'over 90' translated to 'the most significant digit will always be a 9, even if rounding were taken into account.' In other words, the actual number is 91, 92, 93, or 94. If it were 95, 96, 97, 98, or 99, then the correct phrase would be 'almost 100.'
Of course, this is assuming that the person who thought of saying 'over 90' is endeavoring to be accurate; of which case they could have simply said 'we got 94 entries.' This 'over 90' nonsense seems like an attempt to impress; but with a number so low it just ends up sounding pitiful.
The In Re Bilski case invalidates this patent, as it is not tied to a particular machine.
DISCLAIMER: Not only am I not a lawyer, my sole basis for my statement is knowledge gained from my somewhat-attentive reading of previous/. comments (not articles) regarding the "In Re Bilski" case. I'm not sure if the word "case" applies to In Re Bilski. I'm not sure if "In Re Bilski" should be written with initial caps, as opposed to "in re Bilski", for instance.
Re:One word - ads
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Hell, I can deal with the commercials; they've been there as long as I can remember.
But these days, while you're watching the show there's stuff swooping across the bottom or top third of the screen- sometimes both! Or my personal favorite- they shove the show to one side of the screen to make room for the ads. If they don't respect their own programming, why should I watch it?
Adobe ® Flash ® Player is the world's most pervasive software platform, used by over 2 million professionals and reaching 99.0% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets as well as a wide range of devices
It's interesting that Adobe defines Flash as a "software platform". A javascript-enabled browser could also be defined as such- which would make Adobe's claims of "most pervasive" false, since there are many sites which use javascript but not flash.
Mature Markets include US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan.
Hm, seems like they left out a few...
Of course, they just want to make people to feel comfortable paying top dollar for their products. (And as someone faced with buying a copy of Flash or Adobe CS4 soon, Holy Cow it's expensive!)
"On most older microprocessors, bitwise operations are slightly faster than addition and subtraction operations and usually significantly faster than multiplication and division operations,"
The 'update' DVD came from Best Buy, not the manufacturer- of course Best Buy has access to your home address, via your credit card. Samsung probably just shipped a bunch of discs to Best Buy, asking them to mail them out to owners of the player. No big conspiracy or identity theft going on, so relax.
Slashdot Mirror
Invite sent!
Dang that was fast!!! Thank you!
clifford (dot) coles (at) gmail
Thanks in advance!
Ever since the time that gasoline hit $4 here in the US, I've been keeping an eye on the DOT's Traffic Volume Trends. It seems to me that, once Americans realized how much gas could cost (and will permanently cost, eventually), they also realized how much auto travel is superfluous. In particular This chart of the 12-month average for all roads shows a clear pullback in miles driven. Perhaps some of this could be attributable to people being more efficient in their travel; taking care of multiple errands at once, using public transportation much more, etc. Certainly the downturn in the economy has an impact, too.
I like his last sentence best:
But then again, I knew that was the situation going in...I saw the
writing on the wall (and the contract) from the git-go. I didn't do
this to build an empire, I wanted to tell this story...and that's worth
more than anything else.
And this is why there's so much dreck in the movies/TV. Who the hell wants to give away their best creative ideas to a bunch of corporate executives, and never recieve anything in return except for the chance to "tell a story"?
Kudos to JMS for doing so; I feel I should mail him some money directly, rather than buy the DVDs, however.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. Those contracts are usually long and very hard to read, but they are the terms under which you receive their service, so you need to know them, or prepared to be unpleasantly surprised (which is most peoples' method, apparently).
Actually, forcing myself to read these contracts has been a great deterrent to signing up for things I don't really need.
I read the title as "Microsoft Windows 8.0 Is 20 Years Away"
(and I wasn't even very surprised...)
Hello, Pedantic Man here...
reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective
emphasis mine
Um... no, not quite the pilot's perspective. (Arguably, it's actually a better picture of the terrain beneath the nose of the aircraft than the pilot sees. But it's not the pilot's perspective- at least, I hope not!)
Alley Cat was indeed an awesome game.
But I don't think adding LOLcats is going to improve it.
There are much bigger issues than graphics in this "Console/PC" debate. The really big issues are things like user interface and game controls. Take Oblivion for example- that game's interface was significantly altered to accommodate console play, which made it a sub-optimal for the PC: an overly simplistic UI and relatively poor use of screen real estate.
PC gamers expect a lot more from their games- private servers, LAN play, mods, etc.; and as the Modern Warfare 2 debacle showed us, game companies are showing less & less love for the PC. There's tons more money (and less hassle) to be make on the consoles. That's a MUCH bigger hurdle than "Console graphics are the holding PCs back!"
What's really interesting to me is how MMOGs haven't really made it to the console. I think that's because of the console's revenue model, which really only supports "throwaway" games with a very short life span. You'd think a subscription-style game would have amazing appeal for console game-makers, but where are the games?
Microtransations are a better concept for MMOGs. Rather than take a level/spell/item away if you don't pay, they let you buy that thing whenever you wish.
"Pay $X to continue (faster)" feels a lot more fair than "Give us $X or we'll nerf you."
Don't change the meaning of the article when summarizing.
over 60% of iPhone applications have definitively been pirated
as submitted
60% of paid apps using Pinch have been pirated.
(as written in the article, bolding included)
Let's "reverse-bold" that...
60% of paid apps using Pinch have been pirated.
(emphasis mine)
It might be relevant to non-pinch-using apps, it might not. But let's not delete that relevant bit of data.
The header says "Aeroexperience Blog: The forums are over there."
That's not very catchy, it seems like some sort of advisory note, as if Windows enthusiasts were so clueless that-
<smug>Ah, I get it now.</smug>
Not only that, but using Drupal means you have a built-in security/programming team, constantly updating, improving, looking for bugs, etc. If you write your own software, YOU have to maintain it, by yourself. Are you as good as the Drupal devs? (I know I'm not)
What's with the 'signoff' tag?
(Off topic, I know... if only slashdot had a 'General Discussion' thread.)
The Federal Highway Administration is already suffering shortage of funds due to fewer vehicle miles driven. There's been talk of more toll roads, increasing the gas tax, etc.
As I see it, encouraging people to drive even less will further decrease the revenue collected for road repair- which could mean fewer repairs, more time between repairs, and/or an incentive to raise the gas tax or invent new "usage fees". This could end up increasing the total cost- even though you're paying less for insurance, you're paying more for gas, tolls, etc.
I've always assumed that saying 'over 90' translated to 'the most significant digit will always be a 9, even if rounding were taken into account.' In other words, the actual number is 91, 92, 93, or 94. If it were 95, 96, 97, 98, or 99, then the correct phrase would be 'almost 100.'
Of course, this is assuming that the person who thought of saying 'over 90' is endeavoring to be accurate; of which case they could have simply said 'we got 94 entries.' This 'over 90' nonsense seems like an attempt to impress; but with a number so low it just ends up sounding pitiful.
We are lead to believe at an early age that shortcuts diminish the reward or the experience of a task.
Besides, proofing is overrated anyway...
(It should be: "We are led to believe".)
The In Re Bilski case invalidates this patent, as it is not tied to a particular machine.
DISCLAIMER: Not only am I not a lawyer, my sole basis for my statement is knowledge gained from my somewhat-attentive reading of previous /. comments (not articles) regarding the "In Re Bilski" case. I'm not sure if the word "case" applies to In Re Bilski. I'm not sure if "In Re Bilski" should be written with initial caps, as opposed to "in re Bilski", for instance.
Hell, I can deal with the commercials; they've been there as long as I can remember.
But these days, while you're watching the show there's stuff swooping across the bottom or top third of the screen- sometimes both! Or my personal favorite- they shove the show to one side of the screen to make room for the ads. If they don't respect their own programming, why should I watch it?
Thanks but no thanks.
Here's the quote from Adobe's site...
Adobe ® Flash ® Player is the world's most pervasive software platform, used by over 2 million professionals and reaching 99.0% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets as well as a wide range of devices
It's interesting that Adobe defines Flash as a "software platform". A javascript-enabled browser could also be defined as such- which would make Adobe's claims of "most pervasive" false, since there are many sites which use javascript but not flash.
Mature Markets include US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan.
Hm, seems like they left out a few ...
Of course, they just want to make people to feel comfortable paying top dollar for their products. (And as someone faced with buying a copy of Flash or Adobe CS4 soon, Holy Cow it's expensive!)
Each executive had his own idea of what openness means and how if Apple adopted its own vision of openness it could be more successful
Awwww!1!! They just want openness so that Apple can be more successful.
No multiply or divide? Oh Noes!!1!!
Meh
"On most older microprocessors, bitwise operations are slightly faster than addition and subtraction operations and usually significantly faster than multiplication and division operations,"
The 'update' DVD came from Best Buy, not the manufacturer- of course Best Buy has access to your home address, via your credit card. Samsung probably just shipped a bunch of discs to Best Buy, asking them to mail them out to owners of the player. No big conspiracy or identity theft going on, so relax.
Don't let that bowtie fool you. I know a Dalek when I see one.