First or all, you have to use a useless programming language (C#) which was designed to make your program only work on Windows. Second, you have to use DirectX, again locking your game into Windows platforms. (Btw, they giving you a free Windows box/license to do all this?)
Just because it's free doesn't mean it's open. Furthermore, just because it's free on the 360 doesn't mean it will be free on the XBox 720 or whatever is next. You must be extremely short sighted to not realize how locked in this will make the market. Microsoft has always given free shit to developers when their competitors can't afford to. That doesn't make their intentions noble.
It kind of reminds me of missionaries, who I have mixed feelings about. It's hard to criticize someone for going to the most poverty stricken parts of the world and giving aid, but it just doesn't seem right to me that you have to worship in their church to receive their charity. It kind of seems less like charity and more like a bribe.
That's not what type of company Apple is, never has been. This reminds me of a blurb on C|net which said that Google's Android PLATFORM would outsell the iPhone because it's available on different carriers and phones. How do you compare apples and oranges? The iPhone isn't the OS X phone, it's the Apple phone. When you get into selling a software platform on any device - computers, phones, mp3 players, toasters, ect. - you run the risk of allowing the hardware manufactures who buy licenses to ruin your product. I'm not saying that Android and Windows Mobile don't have their place on the market, but they will always serve commodity phones whereas the iPhone will remain the Ferrari of wireless just as the Mac is the Ferrari of computers.
All in all, I've always had much more respect for Apple's high-margin, tight design over Microsoft's low-margin, ubiquitous, market-first designs. Companies like Apple make me love John Locke and Adam Smith (let them be!) while Microsoft makes me love Karl Marx (keep those fuckers in check!). I think they have very different perspectives of what market competition is. Apple competes for a profitable piece of the market while Microsoft competes to dominate the market. Ballmer's "plea" to Apple reminds me of when Jobs said that Microsoft needed to ditch "Playsforsure" and make their own iPod competitor. They intentionally give each other bad advice. Their market strategies are so different they cannot copy one another and succeed (just look at Zune).
Obviously you didn't even both with the summary, which mentions keyboard and mouse support for PS3. Furthermore, most WoW players use voice-chat through third-party programs.
I think they were hoping the XBox would be that big win, but lost that potential by making it a loss-leader set up to sabotage their competition. If they had delayed the 360 until it was ready rather than rush it to the market, they could have sacrificed some of their current market share for profits. It's the winners and losers mentality - grading success by maketshare rather than efficiency and profitability, that causes them to fail in so many different products. They never seem to learn from the Apples, Googles, and Nintendos of the world. IBM figured it out a long time ago, perhaps these shareholders will incite a similar change.
It's in my dictionary but it says informal. Ain't is in the dictionary too, you gonna tell me that it's also a word? Learn to use the dictionary before you cite it, slang and informal words may exist in reality through actual usage, but that doesn't make them a part of the English language. Hence they are inappropriate for formal publications and citing other similar errors doesn't amend this one.
The privatization of our decrepit school system will lead to its total demise. It's already started to. I know several individuals who left my high school to attend a local charter school which was funded by No Child Left Behind and the place was a joke. There were no certified teachers and it was administered by individuals with nothing more than a high school diploma (the school became a total joke when a graduate became a "teacher" the very next year). The curriculum was nothing more than a series of computer programs which explained concepts and then presented the student with a series of multiple choice tests.
Our local community college requires graduates of said charter school to take their "College preparatory education" classes before signing up for any credited courses and most cannot even pass those (they teach stuff I was learning in sixth grade). Basically, the charter school profits from federal grants while providing no real education to students. But students are love the charter school because you only have to attend for three hours a day, attendance is not strictly enforced, and they don't have to deal with any of that pesky learning.
Bill Gate's schools were no different except they were a blatant attempt to make tech schools which only used Microsoft products and turned America's youth into future.NET programmers. It was a sad attack against Linux, Objective C, C++, and anything else not licensed by Redmond. Corporations have no business being involved in education because it's not in their best interest for American's to be well educated.
Schools need to be federalized. The success of European and Asian schools it to be found in their implementation and funding. They don't assume that communities have the resources and know-how to educate themselves so they are federally regulated with federal criteria. The American school system hasn't had a major reform since its conception with the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance). The United States will continue to decline as long as we continually allow our schools to fall further behind other nations. Our educational system outdates our constitution, now we're allowing corporations to degrade it further, how pathetic.
I don't know why you got modded down. Sure, you're shamelessly plugging an app, but it's pretty relevant to the article. I think that a flight simulator is something that should be open source and free. It's a perfect open source project because all the "features" are simulations of reality, so everyone working on the project will have a clear criteria. You can make an open source Halo clone but video games are so temporal compared to simulators. The time and effort put into an open source FPS would be a waste, as gamers would play it and then be done. Simulators are used for training, enthusiasts, and education. That's the type of program that should be open source rather than kept in check by Microsoft.
These studies are fucking dumb. Actually, most sociological studies a fucking dumb. The "researchers" already had a conclusion and they conducted "studies" until their conclusion was reached in some abstract way. This isn't like the natural sciences where a definitive conclusion can be reached, so despite questionable results, they will never be able to be refuted.
All these "video games cause x behavior" studies are a waste of time and money. Has anyone considered that different people react to video games differently. Some people don't like them at all while some people get addicted to them. Same applies to crochet. Only conclusion I see is that different people are into different shit. For some people, crochet may inspire them to go on a killing spree, but would anyone try to ban crochet as a result? NO. Hell, some people have claimed that the Beatles made them commit hideous crimes, but they're still on my playlist.
In a nutshell, I'm saying that Sociology is a bullshit science and if you ever have the misfortune of taking a Sociology class take everything, especially the statistics they throw at you, with a grain of salt.
All the games mentioned have different reasons for "failure" as far as I'm concerned. Conan never stood a chance. It had a successful Beta because every MMO has a successful Beta b/c the WoW freaks try the Betas and never buy the games. Mirror's Edge never stood a chance of superb sales in the U.S. b/c of the premise (running from your enemy rather than ripping their head off) but its uniqueness made people want to try it out (without committing money, of course). Little Big Planet is an odd case. It had a last minute recall, is insanely different from any other game, and was released on the console with the lowest market share. The only game I would consider a failure would be Conan. There is no hope of recouping the development costs for that game. Mirror's Edge will never be a blockbuster but it sells at my store (with the #1 reason being, "I loved the demo") and Little Big Planet has, unlike most games, sold more week after week.
What will really help Mirror's Edge and especially Little Big Planet out is that trade-ins are rare. When people keep the game rather than trading it in the game is able to pick up more sales as time goes on. Little Big Planet has a lot to keep one's attention and the downloadable content isn't gimicky like most games. In other words, Little Big Planet doesn't have to be a top holiday seller to be a stellar success.
No real difference except a big button that says YOUTUBE for non-slashdotters who don't understand that WebBrowser = YouTube. Remember, most people don't know what a web browser is, as far as they're concerned the internet is IE rather than IE being an internet device.
Okay, this is the second time Microsoft has done this. Around the turn of the century they released the much botched Windows Millennium edition. Everyone bought it, hated it, and replaced it with XP when that came out. Now they do the same with Vista/7. At what point do people lose their confidence in this company? Almost every American who is a technology consumer has dealt with either a botched Windows OS or a broken XBox yet they still act as if Microsoft is the only tech company in the world. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious to everyone here, but it's not right to profit from a broken product and then profit even more from its non-broken replacement.
. . . between Obama and Bush. Bush appointed a professional politician (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Abraham) and then someone slightly more qualified, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_W._Bodman), a venture capitalist who had attended MIT. Abraham had nothing to do with energy Bodman has done nothing but executive positions for the last thirty years. Obama chose someone who's really qualified and isn't financially tied to our current energy industries. Considering that the inauguration is tomorrow and this man is still hard at working trying to provide energy solutions only confirms what an excellent choice he is.
The ineptitude of the Bush administration isn't just in the man himself, it was the slew of yes-men appointed to important positions that has made our government ineffective for the last eight years.
How ironic that your sig says "don't feed the trolls." You're chomping at the bit with your backwards logic (PS2 was top selling video console of all time but you said they blew it) and questionable assumptions (saying Sony would be out of the video game market if not for RRoD). I would tell you everything that's wrong with your post, but I'll just take your advice. You don't have to be an AC to be a troll.
Oh please. Most people don't know that there is an alternative to Windows, except for Apple (but you know, they only make stuff for rich fags and morons and you can't play games on them/sarcasm). And Linux. ..perhaps if people who ran businesses actually took the time to learn about the products which run their business, then suits wouldn't feel that Microsoft is their only option.
Here's MY prediction: Windows, Office - they will steadily lose clout and as they do Microsoft will have trouble keeping stockholders. Their one saving grace is the XBox and they know it, that's why they've thrown so much money and attention at it. The internet is too free and open so they want to replace it with XBox Live.
Windows server,.Net, and all that crap: it's gonna get taken out by Linux. American business men might be morons who can't detach themselves from Microsoft's tit but America is losing its #1 position to the EU and China and since their executives aren't massive failures like ours (example of American incompetence: our current economic crisis) the will support Linux. Open source and IBM will crush their B2B ambitions.
The only question is, how will the XBox do? I see it becoming the T.V. of Ray Bradbury's imagination in Fahrenheit 451. It seems to be the console of choice even for Slashdotters (and considering the alternative is a Linux, geek-friendly, hardware beast this choice thoroughly disgusts me) and if it's Microsoft's saving grace then I damn you all.
I kind of got off topic, so here is my final retort: Does it matter that Microsoft gives consumers what they want? Wal-Mart sells the shit I buy at lower prices but I don't buy from them because there is a greater evil in giving them money and supporting the economic destruction they cause. The same is true with Microsoft. We've allowed them to integrate themselves into our education system so well that being a "tech guy" and "Microsoft certified" are the same way. As a result, the tech industry is moving to Europe, China, India, Israel, and other places which actually provide their citizens with education. Call me paranoid, call me a troll, but I believe there are issues more important than what a company can do for me. If the means are corrupt or disgraceful I want nothing to do with them.
Strange, in Philosophy 1.0 I learned about Ockham's Razor.:P I think one of the neat things about philosophy is that the fundamental questions seem to have the most complicated answers and vice versa. When one gets past at the rhetoric required for philosophical comprehension, it seems that everything is much less complicated that the discovering rhetoric makes it appear.
It's no different than religion. There are so many theologies and dogmas that knowing and understanding them all can seem overwhelming. But then a guy like Herman Hesse comes along, strips religions of these things, and just focuses on their core similarities and concludes that all religions are very much the same on a fundamental level. It's this fundamental "divine" which is the important part while all the details of the accompanying ancient fables are trivial rhetoric.
Isn't that how evolution is? An incomprehensible series of changes which is dictated by very basic physical constants? Understanding specifically how intelligence formed is very complex because we're trying to unravel the answer. The backtracking is what's complicated, like reverse engineering something. If we could observe the evolution of a unicellular organism into a multicellular intelligent being I'm sure it would seem wholly less complicated than current speculation as to how the process occurs.
This is what I hate about science. There are so many scientists who seek to know things which are so irrelevant that the only possible good the knowledge could do is satisfy some curiosity. I mean, really, what initiated this study? The article doesn't say.
The obvious answer to the question, 'why do octopuses react to HD t.v. and not SD' can easily be found through conjecture - 'because octopuses eyes are different than human eyes.' Lo and behold! That's what the study finds. The greater question is, why did anyone give a shit to begin with?
The personality tidbit is equally useless. First they fail to realize that if you want to pick up on personality traits you need to study a lifeform in its natural habitat. They tried to confuse the octopuses and succeeded. Big whoop.
Personality in animals - and by personality I don't mean "having repetition in your responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or consistently aggressive." I mean it as an ineffable idea which we, as humans, mutually understand. Predators and omnivores have personalities (people, cats, dogs) while herbavores do not (bunnies, cows). Hence why bunnies make terrible pets.
You're wrong and you don't understand the issue. The console, like many other DVD players, will scratch the disc if moved while the disc is spinning. It's called "laser burn" and results in a perfectly circular scratch on the bottom of the disc. I don't understand why this is mentioned, because you're right, it's not a Discman.
The problem with the 360 is that THIS PROBLEM OCCURS EVEN WHEN THE USER DOES NOT MOVE THE CONSOLE. Sometimes this is just the DVD drive going bad. If you're under warranty, Microsoft will repair the console but they won't replace those $60 games you lost. Another problem is that, when the system is vertical and the fans are blasting full speed, the console vibrates ITSELF enough to cause the problem.
So the only real solution: keep your console placed horizontally and pray that you DVD drive doesn't go to crap (prolong its life by playing DVDs in your DVD player or PlayStation)
Regardless, like most the other hardware issues the 360 has, this was avoidable but it would have sacrificed Microsofts "first to the market" strategy and the 360 wouldn't have the advantage over the PS3 it has today. Gamers, for the most part, are fucking idiots. Sony rushed out the most defective system of its time, the PS2, on a wave of hype and marketing and the dumbass gamer market bought them up like hotcakes. (Nintendo's GameCube, which was the most dependable system last generation, suffered because quality control took it and its games longer to reach the market). Now Microsoft outdoes Sony by creating the only system with more manufacturer defects than the PS2 and it sells like hotcakes. Sony delays the PS3 FOR THE SAKE OF QUALITY CONTROL, and the idiot gamer market shuns them for it.
Gamers, by and large, are greedy morons who will allow themselves to be raped for the latest Final Fantasy or Halo. I know this because I work at a retailer which sells this crap, and I never understood why they throw their money at whichever company screws them the worst.
Keep defending their blatant ass-rape of consumers, maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that that pain in your ass isn't Bill Gate's tiny little cock having its way with you. People who have to play the latest games no matter what are the ones who hold this industry back from achieving what is should. If you didn't throw your money at broken crap Microsoft wouldn't sell you broken crap.
Admin isn't root in OS X, it's one step below. To run as root you need to use the terminal, and if you know how to use the terminal it's unlikely that your system will be compromised.
Just like Resident Evil 1-3 was anti-American and how 4 was racist against Spaniards. That's why there's no Resident Evil taking place in Japan - it's made by greasy-nerdy-short-foureyed-inconsiderate-godless-racist Nips.
Has anyone considered that, from the developer's perspective, all the zombies are not only foreigners, but of a race other than their own? Any controversy about RE5's trailers just shows how ignorant and self-absorbed Americans are. We assume that our taboos - such as shooting up hordes of black people, but not including hordes of Asians or white people - have some universal application as if our culture is the world culture.
Slashdot Mirror
Open GL is.
So do you work for MS or are you an idiot?
First or all, you have to use a useless programming language (C#) which was designed to make your program only work on Windows. Second, you have to use DirectX, again locking your game into Windows platforms. (Btw, they giving you a free Windows box/license to do all this?)
Just because it's free doesn't mean it's open. Furthermore, just because it's free on the 360 doesn't mean it will be free on the XBox 720 or whatever is next. You must be extremely short sighted to not realize how locked in this will make the market. Microsoft has always given free shit to developers when their competitors can't afford to. That doesn't make their intentions noble.
It kind of reminds me of missionaries, who I have mixed feelings about. It's hard to criticize someone for going to the most poverty stricken parts of the world and giving aid, but it just doesn't seem right to me that you have to worship in their church to receive their charity. It kind of seems less like charity and more like a bribe.
That's not what type of company Apple is, never has been. This reminds me of a blurb on C|net which said that Google's Android PLATFORM would outsell the iPhone because it's available on different carriers and phones. How do you compare apples and oranges? The iPhone isn't the OS X phone, it's the Apple phone. When you get into selling a software platform on any device - computers, phones, mp3 players, toasters, ect. - you run the risk of allowing the hardware manufactures who buy licenses to ruin your product. I'm not saying that Android and Windows Mobile don't have their place on the market, but they will always serve commodity phones whereas the iPhone will remain the Ferrari of wireless just as the Mac is the Ferrari of computers.
All in all, I've always had much more respect for Apple's high-margin, tight design over Microsoft's low-margin, ubiquitous, market-first designs. Companies like Apple make me love John Locke and Adam Smith (let them be!) while Microsoft makes me love Karl Marx (keep those fuckers in check!). I think they have very different perspectives of what market competition is. Apple competes for a profitable piece of the market while Microsoft competes to dominate the market. Ballmer's "plea" to Apple reminds me of when Jobs said that Microsoft needed to ditch "Playsforsure" and make their own iPod competitor. They intentionally give each other bad advice. Their market strategies are so different they cannot copy one another and succeed (just look at Zune).
Stopped reading right there. If these guys are doing it, I want nothing to do with it. I'm sure many others feel the same way.
Yes, the competition is so much more respectable.
Obviously you didn't even both with the summary, which mentions keyboard and mouse support for PS3. Furthermore, most WoW players use voice-chat through third-party programs.
I think they were hoping the XBox would be that big win, but lost that potential by making it a loss-leader set up to sabotage their competition. If they had delayed the 360 until it was ready rather than rush it to the market, they could have sacrificed some of their current market share for profits. It's the winners and losers mentality - grading success by maketshare rather than efficiency and profitability, that causes them to fail in so many different products. They never seem to learn from the Apples, Googles, and Nintendos of the world. IBM figured it out a long time ago, perhaps these shareholders will incite a similar change.
It's in my dictionary but it says informal. Ain't is in the dictionary too, you gonna tell me that it's also a word? Learn to use the dictionary before you cite it, slang and informal words may exist in reality through actual usage, but that doesn't make them a part of the English language. Hence they are inappropriate for formal publications and citing other similar errors doesn't amend this one.
The privatization of our decrepit school system will lead to its total demise. It's already started to. I know several individuals who left my high school to attend a local charter school which was funded by No Child Left Behind and the place was a joke. There were no certified teachers and it was administered by individuals with nothing more than a high school diploma (the school became a total joke when a graduate became a "teacher" the very next year). The curriculum was nothing more than a series of computer programs which explained concepts and then presented the student with a series of multiple choice tests.
Our local community college requires graduates of said charter school to take their "College preparatory education" classes before signing up for any credited courses and most cannot even pass those (they teach stuff I was learning in sixth grade). Basically, the charter school profits from federal grants while providing no real education to students. But students are love the charter school because you only have to attend for three hours a day, attendance is not strictly enforced, and they don't have to deal with any of that pesky learning.
Bill Gate's schools were no different except they were a blatant attempt to make tech schools which only used Microsoft products and turned America's youth into future .NET programmers. It was a sad attack against Linux, Objective C, C++, and anything else not licensed by Redmond. Corporations have no business being involved in education because it's not in their best interest for American's to be well educated.
Schools need to be federalized. The success of European and Asian schools it to be found in their implementation and funding. They don't assume that communities have the resources and know-how to educate themselves so they are federally regulated with federal criteria. The American school system hasn't had a major reform since its conception with the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance). The United States will continue to decline as long as we continually allow our schools to fall further behind other nations. Our educational system outdates our constitution, now we're allowing corporations to degrade it further, how pathetic.
I always fell asleep in math class because I'd stay up all night playing Starcraft. Neat idea in theory.
For me, Starcraft is more like speed chess and I love chess. I still suck at math though.
I don't know why you got modded down. Sure, you're shamelessly plugging an app, but it's pretty relevant to the article. I think that a flight simulator is something that should be open source and free. It's a perfect open source project because all the "features" are simulations of reality, so everyone working on the project will have a clear criteria. You can make an open source Halo clone but video games are so temporal compared to simulators. The time and effort put into an open source FPS would be a waste, as gamers would play it and then be done. Simulators are used for training, enthusiasts, and education. That's the type of program that should be open source rather than kept in check by Microsoft.
These studies are fucking dumb. Actually, most sociological studies a fucking dumb. The "researchers" already had a conclusion and they conducted "studies" until their conclusion was reached in some abstract way. This isn't like the natural sciences where a definitive conclusion can be reached, so despite questionable results, they will never be able to be refuted.
All these "video games cause x behavior" studies are a waste of time and money. Has anyone considered that different people react to video games differently. Some people don't like them at all while some people get addicted to them. Same applies to crochet. Only conclusion I see is that different people are into different shit. For some people, crochet may inspire them to go on a killing spree, but would anyone try to ban crochet as a result? NO. Hell, some people have claimed that the Beatles made them commit hideous crimes, but they're still on my playlist.
In a nutshell, I'm saying that Sociology is a bullshit science and if you ever have the misfortune of taking a Sociology class take everything, especially the statistics they throw at you, with a grain of salt.
All the games mentioned have different reasons for "failure" as far as I'm concerned. Conan never stood a chance. It had a successful Beta because every MMO has a successful Beta b/c the WoW freaks try the Betas and never buy the games. Mirror's Edge never stood a chance of superb sales in the U.S. b/c of the premise (running from your enemy rather than ripping their head off) but its uniqueness made people want to try it out (without committing money, of course). Little Big Planet is an odd case. It had a last minute recall, is insanely different from any other game, and was released on the console with the lowest market share. The only game I would consider a failure would be Conan. There is no hope of recouping the development costs for that game. Mirror's Edge will never be a blockbuster but it sells at my store (with the #1 reason being, "I loved the demo") and Little Big Planet has, unlike most games, sold more week after week.
What will really help Mirror's Edge and especially Little Big Planet out is that trade-ins are rare. When people keep the game rather than trading it in the game is able to pick up more sales as time goes on. Little Big Planet has a lot to keep one's attention and the downloadable content isn't gimicky like most games. In other words, Little Big Planet doesn't have to be a top holiday seller to be a stellar success.
No real difference except a big button that says YOUTUBE for non-slashdotters who don't understand that WebBrowser = YouTube. Remember, most people don't know what a web browser is, as far as they're concerned the internet is IE rather than IE being an internet device.
Okay, this is the second time Microsoft has done this. Around the turn of the century they released the much botched Windows Millennium edition. Everyone bought it, hated it, and replaced it with XP when that came out. Now they do the same with Vista/7. At what point do people lose their confidence in this company? Almost every American who is a technology consumer has dealt with either a botched Windows OS or a broken XBox yet they still act as if Microsoft is the only tech company in the world. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious to everyone here, but it's not right to profit from a broken product and then profit even more from its non-broken replacement.
. . . between Obama and Bush. Bush appointed a professional politician (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Abraham) and then someone slightly more qualified, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_W._Bodman), a venture capitalist who had attended MIT. Abraham had nothing to do with energy Bodman has done nothing but executive positions for the last thirty years. Obama chose someone who's really qualified and isn't financially tied to our current energy industries. Considering that the inauguration is tomorrow and this man is still hard at working trying to provide energy solutions only confirms what an excellent choice he is.
The ineptitude of the Bush administration isn't just in the man himself, it was the slew of yes-men appointed to important positions that has made our government ineffective for the last eight years.
How ironic that your sig says "don't feed the trolls." You're chomping at the bit with your backwards logic (PS2 was top selling video console of all time but you said they blew it) and questionable assumptions (saying Sony would be out of the video game market if not for RRoD). I would tell you everything that's wrong with your post, but I'll just take your advice. You don't have to be an AC to be a troll.
So why is it their stock has been flat going on nine years?
Oh please. Most people don't know that there is an alternative to Windows, except for Apple (but you know, they only make stuff for rich fags and morons and you can't play games on them /sarcasm). And Linux. . .perhaps if people who ran businesses actually took the time to learn about the products which run their business, then suits wouldn't feel that Microsoft is their only option.
Here's MY prediction: Windows, Office - they will steadily lose clout and as they do Microsoft will have trouble keeping stockholders. Their one saving grace is the XBox and they know it, that's why they've thrown so much money and attention at it. The internet is too free and open so they want to replace it with XBox Live.
Windows server, .Net, and all that crap: it's gonna get taken out by Linux. American business men might be morons who can't detach themselves from Microsoft's tit but America is losing its #1 position to the EU and China and since their executives aren't massive failures like ours (example of American incompetence: our current economic crisis) the will support Linux. Open source and IBM will crush their B2B ambitions.
The only question is, how will the XBox do? I see it becoming the T.V. of Ray Bradbury's imagination in Fahrenheit 451. It seems to be the console of choice even for Slashdotters (and considering the alternative is a Linux, geek-friendly, hardware beast this choice thoroughly disgusts me) and if it's Microsoft's saving grace then I damn you all.
I kind of got off topic, so here is my final retort: Does it matter that Microsoft gives consumers what they want? Wal-Mart sells the shit I buy at lower prices but I don't buy from them because there is a greater evil in giving them money and supporting the economic destruction they cause. The same is true with Microsoft. We've allowed them to integrate themselves into our education system so well that being a "tech guy" and "Microsoft certified" are the same way. As a result, the tech industry is moving to Europe, China, India, Israel, and other places which actually provide their citizens with education. Call me paranoid, call me a troll, but I believe there are issues more important than what a company can do for me. If the means are corrupt or disgraceful I want nothing to do with them.
Strange, in Philosophy 1.0 I learned about Ockham's Razor. :P I think one of the neat things about philosophy is that the fundamental questions seem to have the most complicated answers and vice versa. When one gets past at the rhetoric required for philosophical comprehension, it seems that everything is much less complicated that the discovering rhetoric makes it appear.
It's no different than religion. There are so many theologies and dogmas that knowing and understanding them all can seem overwhelming. But then a guy like Herman Hesse comes along, strips religions of these things, and just focuses on their core similarities and concludes that all religions are very much the same on a fundamental level. It's this fundamental "divine" which is the important part while all the details of the accompanying ancient fables are trivial rhetoric.
Isn't that how evolution is? An incomprehensible series of changes which is dictated by very basic physical constants? Understanding specifically how intelligence formed is very complex because we're trying to unravel the answer. The backtracking is what's complicated, like reverse engineering something. If we could observe the evolution of a unicellular organism into a multicellular intelligent being I'm sure it would seem wholly less complicated than current speculation as to how the process occurs.
This is what I hate about science. There are so many scientists who seek to know things which are so irrelevant that the only possible good the knowledge could do is satisfy some curiosity. I mean, really, what initiated this study? The article doesn't say.
The obvious answer to the question, 'why do octopuses react to HD t.v. and not SD' can easily be found through conjecture - 'because octopuses eyes are different than human eyes.' Lo and behold! That's what the study finds. The greater question is, why did anyone give a shit to begin with?
The personality tidbit is equally useless. First they fail to realize that if you want to pick up on personality traits you need to study a lifeform in its natural habitat. They tried to confuse the octopuses and succeeded. Big whoop.
Personality in animals - and by personality I don't mean "having repetition in your responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or consistently aggressive." I mean it as an ineffable idea which we, as humans, mutually understand. Predators and omnivores have personalities (people, cats, dogs) while herbavores do not (bunnies, cows). Hence why bunnies make terrible pets.
It's my understanding that no "AI" is intelligent.
You're wrong and you don't understand the issue. The console, like many other DVD players, will scratch the disc if moved while the disc is spinning. It's called "laser burn" and results in a perfectly circular scratch on the bottom of the disc. I don't understand why this is mentioned, because you're right, it's not a Discman. The problem with the 360 is that THIS PROBLEM OCCURS EVEN WHEN THE USER DOES NOT MOVE THE CONSOLE. Sometimes this is just the DVD drive going bad. If you're under warranty, Microsoft will repair the console but they won't replace those $60 games you lost. Another problem is that, when the system is vertical and the fans are blasting full speed, the console vibrates ITSELF enough to cause the problem. So the only real solution: keep your console placed horizontally and pray that you DVD drive doesn't go to crap (prolong its life by playing DVDs in your DVD player or PlayStation) Regardless, like most the other hardware issues the 360 has, this was avoidable but it would have sacrificed Microsofts "first to the market" strategy and the 360 wouldn't have the advantage over the PS3 it has today. Gamers, for the most part, are fucking idiots. Sony rushed out the most defective system of its time, the PS2, on a wave of hype and marketing and the dumbass gamer market bought them up like hotcakes. (Nintendo's GameCube, which was the most dependable system last generation, suffered because quality control took it and its games longer to reach the market). Now Microsoft outdoes Sony by creating the only system with more manufacturer defects than the PS2 and it sells like hotcakes. Sony delays the PS3 FOR THE SAKE OF QUALITY CONTROL, and the idiot gamer market shuns them for it. Gamers, by and large, are greedy morons who will allow themselves to be raped for the latest Final Fantasy or Halo. I know this because I work at a retailer which sells this crap, and I never understood why they throw their money at whichever company screws them the worst. Keep defending their blatant ass-rape of consumers, maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that that pain in your ass isn't Bill Gate's tiny little cock having its way with you. People who have to play the latest games no matter what are the ones who hold this industry back from achieving what is should. If you didn't throw your money at broken crap Microsoft wouldn't sell you broken crap.
Admin isn't root in OS X, it's one step below. To run as root you need to use the terminal, and if you know how to use the terminal it's unlikely that your system will be compromised.
Just like Resident Evil 1-3 was anti-American and how 4 was racist against Spaniards. That's why there's no Resident Evil taking place in Japan - it's made by greasy-nerdy-short-foureyed-inconsiderate-godless-racist Nips. Has anyone considered that, from the developer's perspective, all the zombies are not only foreigners, but of a race other than their own? Any controversy about RE5's trailers just shows how ignorant and self-absorbed Americans are. We assume that our taboos - such as shooting up hordes of black people, but not including hordes of Asians or white people - have some universal application as if our culture is the world culture.