As realityimpaired described, the moon not actually being there is just a joke people made up while satirising the moon-hoax conspiracy theorists. But some of them genuinely claim to have found evidence it's all faked (and even that Space Aliens Live On The Moon!!!oneoneexclam) by massively enlarging and post-processing jpeg images until all you can see are the artifacts, yes.
Ever since Microsoft introduced the ability to remove games with zero points from your card (which was primarily done because until that point all Live Arcade demos counted as launching the game, and so people who try to keep their completion percentage high weren't trying the Arcade games out in case they didn't like them), there has been a tendency to award 5 points or whatever for doing something as soon as possible. Because, as I say, some people hate to have a game on their card with some silly-low number of points. It's a simple way of reducing the chance of a player playing for 5 minutes and taking it back to the shop because they hated it, or whatever.
On the contrary. As you've just described, ALL the light coming out of an LCD display (apart from a bit of leakage, which isn't a good thing anyway) is polarised in a particular direction. If you sit there with polarised glasses in the correct orientation, you're not blocking much of the intended light.
Sure, you can't use them in portrait that way, but when was the last time you tried to do that with a laptop? Well, unless it's an iPad-alike, anyway.
If you don't immediately jump to the MONSANTO IS EEEVIL!!!!oneoneone! Pavlovian response upon seeing the letters G and M in close proximity, this is not the story for you, so it's a helpful shibboleth from that point of view.
Of course, what they haven't explained is why we should particularly care whether someone else can watch the content, rather than everyone being blocked like we've been.
The US has tonnes of space in sunny deserts to build Solar stations. The problem is that nobody in the US wants to pay to run the power cables from these areas to population centres.
It's got no new features, because the analogy is PS3 to PS3-slim, PS2 to PS2-slim, PS1 to PSOne etc. Not PS2 to PS3.
Add a new feature, and it's no longer a 360. The slim Playstation versions, GBA SP and DS Lite seem to have sold well enough, to counter your 2600jr argument.
Hey, at least you Linux lot had a 64-bit Flash in the first place. Us poor Windows users have to drop to the 32-bit browser if we want to run pointless rubbish (well, excluding Windows itself, but you know what I mean).
Sony claim to have sold about 60 million PSPs over the lifespan of the machine. Assuming that a third of them were either sold to people with another machine (I know plenty who got the thinner, lighter update to replace the big heavy version, or just broke one) that's about $1000 per person. At $40 a game list, that's 25 lost sales per owner. I can't even think of 25 PSP games worth getting for nothing...
However, since only two days ago, Sony announced they have sold a total of 50 million PSPs, that's the real population we should be looking at.
Let's assume that every PSP has been modded. And that nobody has bought two (which, given I'm the only person I know who didn't replace a 1st-gen with a smaller, better one, is obviously wrong). That's nearly a grand's worth of piracy each.
Stick 0. in front of your bandwidth, and you've a good idea what a lot of BT subscribers are going to have to run this on. That's where the problems are going to lie.
I'm with Virgin Media cable broadband and get a rock-solid 10Mb/s, but the exclusivity agreement means I'm not allowed to use it.
> No, the hardware is owned by whoever bought it, once Apple sells you something they don't own it anymore.
True, once you've bought it. And I'm not going to defend Apple from claims of control-freakery. But I do think that it's at least in part about controlling their hardware while it's still theirs - i.e. making the product experience shiny enough that you'll want to buy one in the first place.
Actually, Steam made me find out I _was_ cheap. Just about everything I've bought on it was at a stupidly cheap sale, but was something I not only hadn't considered getting at full price, but hadn't chosen to pirate rather than pay for, either.
They post these messages, saying effectively "Would you like X? Everyone said it was really good, you know, and it's only the price of a couple of pints to find out", and I can't resist that.
On the other hand, it's really about Apple's control over their own hardware, and what ships on it. Unlike H.264, for all that they need to licence it, Adobe are the only people who can supply a Flash player to run on the iPad, because it's a nasty little piece of undocumented junk. Jobs wants the code in the box to be their code, because then he's got control over how good it is, what exactly it does, and who fixes the bugs.
As it happens, the contents of my iPod are all my own purchases. No illegal downloads to see here, officer.
But I rather suspect that the 600 slabs of vinyl and 1500 CDs it all came from would just slightly put my suitcase over the luggage limit. How the merry hell do they expect that to work?
Of course there's a contract between Sony and the retailer. The point of the refund demand, and so why Sony's refusal to get involved, is that the relevant contract is between the customer and the retailer. Amazon are the people who have had to cough up for breach of contract, not Sony.
Now we've found out that Sony have no intention of reimbursing Amazon for it. So either the retailers are going to have to hope that nobody copies the idea in search of £50 for an hour's worth of complaining, or Amazon are going Legal on Sony's arse.
If it's like any vendor I've ever dealt with, they're not "demanding" the article writer spends time helping to understand the issue. They're quite reasonably stating the fact that they need further information in order to fix it.
Give the information, and you'll probably get one. Don't give the information, and fail to be surprised when they don't. It's up to you, really.
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As realityimpaired described, the moon not actually being there is just a joke people made up while satirising the moon-hoax conspiracy theorists. But some of them genuinely claim to have found evidence it's all faked (and even that Space Aliens Live On The Moon!!!oneoneexclam) by massively enlarging and post-processing jpeg images until all you can see are the artifacts, yes.
Ever since Microsoft introduced the ability to remove games with zero points from your card (which was primarily done because until that point all Live Arcade demos counted as launching the game, and so people who try to keep their completion percentage high weren't trying the Arcade games out in case they didn't like them), there has been a tendency to award 5 points or whatever for doing something as soon as possible. Because, as I say, some people hate to have a game on their card with some silly-low number of points. It's a simple way of reducing the chance of a player playing for 5 minutes and taking it back to the shop because they hated it, or whatever.
On the contrary. As you've just described, ALL the light coming out of an LCD display (apart from a bit of leakage, which isn't a good thing anyway) is polarised in a particular direction. If you sit there with polarised glasses in the correct orientation, you're not blocking much of the intended light.
Sure, you can't use them in portrait that way, but when was the last time you tried to do that with a laptop? Well, unless it's an iPad-alike, anyway.
Umm, there's just a _bit_ of a difference between lying and reducing the brightness of a screen so it doesn't wash out the rest of the shot.
Or are you one of those 'interesting' people who use jpeg artifacts to claim the Moon doesn't exist, or whatever?
If you don't immediately jump to the MONSANTO IS EEEVIL!!!!oneoneone! Pavlovian response upon seeing the letters G and M in close proximity, this is not the story for you, so it's a helpful shibboleth from that point of view.
Oh, the Steam sale has been a killer recently. There are several games I've bought for a pittance that I've not even installed yet, let alone played.
Of course, what they haven't explained is why we should particularly care whether someone else can watch the content, rather than everyone being blocked like we've been.
Here, have a PS3. Now, because I am classy, you've precisely zero clue how much one costs, right?
Lemmings 2 is far, far better if you ask me. But then I've still got my A1200 to play it on, so a port isn't something I desperately need.
The US has tonnes of space in sunny deserts to build Solar stations. The problem is that nobody in the US wants to pay to run the power cables from these areas to population centres.
It's got no new features, because the analogy is PS3 to PS3-slim, PS2 to PS2-slim, PS1 to PSOne etc. Not PS2 to PS3.
Add a new feature, and it's no longer a 360. The slim Playstation versions, GBA SP and DS Lite seem to have sold well enough, to counter your 2600jr argument.
Hey, at least you Linux lot had a 64-bit Flash in the first place. Us poor Windows users have to drop to the 32-bit browser if we want to run pointless rubbish (well, excluding Windows itself, but you know what I mean).
No, let's be accurate here.
32-bit Windows devices.
Because despite even my little Acer netbook running 64-bit IE, I have to drop to the 32-bit version to see Flash.
They do, but the discs are delivering 960x1080 frames, rather than doubling the bandwidth requirements.
Actually, Samsung got their one to market about a month before. In the UK, at least - I'm not sure which came out first internationally.
Sony claim to have sold about 60 million PSPs over the lifespan of the machine. Assuming that a third of them were either sold to people with another machine (I know plenty who got the thinner, lighter update to replace the big heavy version, or just broke one) that's about $1000 per person. At $40 a game list, that's 25 lost sales per owner. I can't even think of 25 PSP games worth getting for nothing...
However, since only two days ago, Sony announced they have sold a total of 50 million PSPs, that's the real population we should be looking at.
Let's assume that every PSP has been modded. And that nobody has bought two (which, given I'm the only person I know who didn't replace a 1st-gen with a smaller, better one, is obviously wrong). That's nearly a grand's worth of piracy each.
Stick 0. in front of your bandwidth, and you've a good idea what a lot of BT subscribers are going to have to run this on. That's where the problems are going to lie.
I'm with Virgin Media cable broadband and get a rock-solid 10Mb/s, but the exclusivity agreement means I'm not allowed to use it.
> No, the hardware is owned by whoever bought it, once Apple sells you something they don't own it anymore.
True, once you've bought it. And I'm not going to defend Apple from claims of control-freakery. But I do think that it's at least in part about controlling their hardware while it's still theirs - i.e. making the product experience shiny enough that you'll want to buy one in the first place.
Actually, Steam made me find out I _was_ cheap. Just about everything I've bought on it was at a stupidly cheap sale, but was something I not only hadn't considered getting at full price, but hadn't chosen to pirate rather than pay for, either.
They post these messages, saying effectively "Would you like X? Everyone said it was really good, you know, and it's only the price of a couple of pints to find out", and I can't resist that.
On the other hand, it's really about Apple's control over their own hardware, and what ships on it. Unlike H.264, for all that they need to licence it, Adobe are the only people who can supply a Flash player to run on the iPad, because it's a nasty little piece of undocumented junk. Jobs wants the code in the box to be their code, because then he's got control over how good it is, what exactly it does, and who fixes the bugs.
Firstly, you assume I've played a game in the genre before, which may well not be the case.
But the last time I referred to a paper manual for some commands was, umm, yesterday.
As it happens, the contents of my iPod are all my own purchases. No illegal downloads to see here, officer.
But I rather suspect that the 600 slabs of vinyl and 1500 CDs it all came from would just slightly put my suitcase over the luggage limit. How the merry hell do they expect that to work?
Of course there's a contract between Sony and the retailer. The point of the refund demand, and so why Sony's refusal to get involved, is that the relevant contract is between the customer and the retailer. Amazon are the people who have had to cough up for breach of contract, not Sony.
Now we've found out that Sony have no intention of reimbursing Amazon for it. So either the retailers are going to have to hope that nobody copies the idea in search of £50 for an hour's worth of complaining, or Amazon are going Legal on Sony's arse.
If it's like any vendor I've ever dealt with, they're not "demanding" the article writer spends time helping to understand the issue. They're quite reasonably stating the fact that they need further information in order to fix it.
Give the information, and you'll probably get one. Don't give the information, and fail to be surprised when they don't. It's up to you, really.