I like to use a dog analogy. If you feed your dog until he's overweight, then don't feed him until he's skeletal, and then feed him again til he's overweight, then don't feed until he's skeletal..... your dog won't live long. The stress will shorten his life.
The same is true for batteries. Overcharging and then draining them to empty stresses the cell. The ideal is to hold the battery between 60% and 90%, avoid stressing it, and thereby extend its life. That's what Toyota and Honda do to extend their hybrid battery life longer than the gasoline engine.
On another note:
I like NiMH (nickle-metal hydride) better than Lithium. They only hold 75% as much energy but have a very long lifetime (over ten years if not abused), and they can be tossed into landfills because they are environmentally neutral. Also they are not prone to suddenly short-circuit and explode.
Less than 0.1% of the network was funded by taxpayers. Most of the burden (i.e. trillions of dollars) came from corporations expanding the network over the last 90-100 years, first as analog lines, then 56k-capable digital, and more recently copper, coaxial, and fiber (CATV and internet). .
>>>Do for-profit corporations just have to "suck it up" as a price of doing business?
The FCC Broadband Plan is to create an additional tax, similar to the Universal Service Fund for Phones, that would be collected by companies and used to extend 2 Mbit/s lines to 99.9% of rural households.
>>>I see the US political right as having a generally negative opinion of the ACLU
I'm on the right, and I LIKE the ACLU. I hope they keep up the good work of protecting the Constitution and individual rights. Maybe you shouldn't be stereotyping an entire group, simply based on a label? What you said is less onerous than saying, "Jews are generally thieves," but still pretty bad. Stereotyping is wrong. IMHO.:-)
As for net neutrality, a lot of people have confused it with the Fairness Doctrine (for every Rush Limbaugh on AM, there needs to be a Rachel Maddow getting equal time). All that's needed is to educate them that these two things are not the same thing. That net neutrality is about stopping censorship by Comcast, et al.
>>>there's never been a case of a government using its regulatory power to curtail free speech:-\
That isn't even close to accurate. The US and State governments have curtailed free speech (and the right to peaceably assemble) many, many times during the past two decades. I would give you a list, but I'd need a thousand pages to list all of the examples. You're better off to start with "free speech zones" (funny - the Constitution doesn't include any such limit) and expand your research outward from there.
>>>It's not provider neutrality that I see as most important but backbone neutrality.
Precisely.
In the ideal world the Internet line would be just like the telephone line, where you can choose from dozens of companies for service. Also I'm curious what the ACLU means by "Freedom of expression isn't worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free." Forums, like slashdot, are privately owned. You DON'T have a right to free speech. You have a right to obey the rules of the forum sysop, even if he's a tyrant. It's his domain; his rules.
Surely the small parabolic dish is more compact/efficient than an antenna array? I looked at the article but it doesn't show any pictures of what these new antennas would look like.
It would be cool if something like this could be used to replace the big, bulky antennas needed for Broadcast TV and Radio.
Even if we assume wiki is wrong, there's TONS of other references. Google finds *several million* of them. So are these millions of writers (plus the FACT Mattel, Coleco, Atari were bankrupted) are completely wrong? And a solitary/. dude is right? Suuuuuure.
Right. People just write multi-page articles about things that never happened? I guess this article I'm about to quote is an ILLUZIONS and doesn't exist? You're probably one of those NUTTERS who thinks the moon landing enver happened either, or that the Dot-Com Crash of 2000 is mythology. Dumb fuck.
The '''North American video game crash of 1983''' (sometimes known as the '''[[Atari, Inc.|Atari]] Debacle''' or the '''video game crash of 1983 and 1984''' because it was in that year that the full effects of the crash became apparent to consumers) brought an abrupt end to what is considered the [[History of video game consoles (second generation)|second generation]] of console video gaming in North America. It almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the [[bankruptcy]] of several companies producing [[home computer]]s and [[video game console]]s in [[North America]]. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] (NES), which was released in North America in {{vgy|1985}} and became extremely popular by {{vgy|1987}}.{{cite journal |author=Consalvo, Mia |year=2006 |title=Console video games and global corporations: Creating a hybrid culture |journal=New Media Society |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=117-137 |doi=10.1177/1461444806059921 |url=http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/117 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080228191914/http://intl-nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/1/117.pdf |archivedate=2008-02-28 |format=PDF}}
There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was supersaturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games.
== Causes and factors ==
The American video game console crash of 1983 was caused by a combination of factors. Although some were more important than others, all played a role in saturating, and then imploding, the video game industry.
=== Plethora of games and consoles === At the time of the US crash, there were numerous consoles on the market, including the [[Atari 2600]], the [[Atari 5200]], the [[Bally Astrocade]], the [[ColecoVision]], the Coleco Gemini (a 2600 clone), the [[Emerson Arcadia 2001]], the [[Fairchild Channel F|Fairchild Channel F System II]], the [[Odyssey 2|Magnavox Odyssey2]], the [[Mattel]] [[Intellivision]] (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the [[Intellivision II]]), the [[Sears]] Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the TandyvisioN (an Intellivision clone for [[Radio Shack]]), and the [[Vectrex]].
Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries. Likewise, many of these same companies announced yet another generation of consoles for {{vgy|1984}}, such as the [[Odyssey3]], and [[Atari 7800]].{{cite news| last = Taylor| first = Alexander L. III| title = Pac-Man Finally Meets His Match| publisher = Time Magazine|date=1982-12-20| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923197,00.html| accessdate = 2006-12-04 }}
Adding to the industry's woes was a glut of poor titles from hastily financed startup companies. These games, combined with weak high-profile Atari 2600 games, such as the [[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|video game version]] of the hit movie ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]'' and an [[Pac-Man (Atari 2600)|infamous port]] of the popular [[arcade game]] ''[[Pac-Man]]'', seriously damaged the reputation of the industry. Finally, Atari's market-leading [[Atari 2600|2600]], now in its sixth year, was starting to approach [[market saturation|saturation]]
>>>The US should just nationalize the last mile, treat it as a utility, and avoid all that icky anti-trust litigation.
It can't.
Antitrust legislation is constitutional (says the supreme court), but nationalization of the lines is not. There are limits to what the US Government can do.
>>>Ma Bell was broken up over illegal manipulation of the HARDWARE industry: telephones.
Comcast and other ISPs can be broken-up for the same reason: control of Set Top Boxes/hardware instead of letting customers choose their own equipment. - Also you're wrong to say Ma Bell should have kept its natural monopoly. Now I can choose from literally 50 different companies for long distance, in-state calls, and local service. Instead of paying the outrageous 50 cents/minute Ma Monopoly charged, I can choose cheaper alternatives (as low as 5 cents). Choice is better because it puts control in the hands of the citizen, where it belongs.
I'm surprised the EU has not spoken-up, to tell the US to stop interfering with its domestic policies. Also surprised the US hasn't tried to assassinate Assange yet.
But there's no reason to keep secret operations that have over a month ago.
The People aka the boss have a right to know what their government is doing, so when the government does objectionable things (like killing children or other innocents), the people can demand that it be stopped.
>>>The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians
No.
The problem is that the Canadian Government wants to muzzle scientists' mouths. We may not agree with their views but that's no reason to silence them. Liberated speech is one of the most basic rights. The muzzling of speech is the purview of tyrants.
On the day when a console stops being manufactured on the assembly line, that's when it's dead. For example Atari 2600/VCS stopped in 1992. Ditto the C=64 computer. Off the top of my head, I recall NES ceased manufacture in 1996.
Sure the games might still live-on via emulation, just like some people still drive Model T's, but the model has been retired from production.
>>>"Elite" being ported to more platforms than any other game, though it was strictly a non-console game due to the number of command keys needed.
"Strictly" a non-console game? Elite does exist on the NES console.
As for most-ported game it's probably "Ms. Pac-Man" which exists on all 3 Atari consoles, possibly Jaguar too?, Intellivision, Colecovision, all the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit computers of the 1980s, plus the NES, PS1, N64, PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.
>>>It is a myth that was generated because the Atari 2600 finally died
Sorry. Not a myth. For whatever reason* consumers lost interest in videogame consoles, and Christmas 1982 barely sold any games at all. 1983 was even worse. It killed Mattel's Intellivision, killed Colecovision, and almost killed Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 too. You can read more about it on Wikipedia if you search for 1983 Videogame Crash.
In 1984 the game console market was considered as "dead" as pinball. Then came the Japanese Nintendo & Sega companies in 1985-86 who revived it.
* * One theory is people bought computers instead of consoles. * Another is that it was just a side effect of the 1982-83 economic recession - people stopped spending money on "toys" like game consoles.
And also feeding SD channels (like MTV) with the top/bottom chopped off to try and trick customers to think it is widescreen! Bastards. I get my HD programming off the antenna, which is typically 15 Mbit/s rather than Comcast's squeezed 7 Mbit/s HD.
>>>anytime you challenge the current power brokers, expect to be fried.
I guess we need to kill them first then. - or - dissolve the US (or EU) government as a "bad idea", thereby making the powerbrokers powerless. Personally I'd like to see a return to the Article of Confederation, with just a few modifications.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>Just how far up their own arses can Sony go?
They saw a sign that said, "Microsoft and Apple just ahead," and decided to keep going.
>>>I thought it was exactly the opposite.
I like to use a dog analogy. If you feed your dog until he's overweight, then don't feed him until he's skeletal, and then feed him again til he's overweight, then don't feed until he's skeletal..... your dog won't live long. The stress will shorten his life.
The same is true for batteries. Overcharging and then draining them to empty stresses the cell. The ideal is to hold the battery between 60% and 90%, avoid stressing it, and thereby extend its life. That's what Toyota and Honda do to extend their hybrid battery life longer than the gasoline engine.
On another note:
I like NiMH (nickle-metal hydride) better than Lithium. They only hold 75% as much energy but have a very long lifetime (over ten years if not abused), and they can be tossed into landfills because they are environmentally neutral. Also they are not prone to suddenly short-circuit and explode.
Less than 0.1% of the network was funded by taxpayers. Most of the burden (i.e. trillions of dollars) came from corporations expanding the network over the last 90-100 years, first as analog lines, then 56k-capable digital, and more recently copper, coaxial, and fiber (CATV and internet).
.
>>>Do for-profit corporations just have to "suck it up" as a price of doing business?
The FCC Broadband Plan is to create an additional tax, similar to the Universal Service Fund for Phones, that would be collected by companies and used to extend 2 Mbit/s lines to 99.9% of rural households.
>>>I see the US political right as having a generally negative opinion of the ACLU
I'm on the right, and I LIKE the ACLU. I hope they keep up the good work of protecting the Constitution and individual rights. Maybe you shouldn't be stereotyping an entire group, simply based on a label? What you said is less onerous than saying, "Jews are generally thieves," but still pretty bad. Stereotyping is wrong. IMHO. :-)
As for net neutrality, a lot of people have confused it with the Fairness Doctrine (for every Rush Limbaugh on AM, there needs to be a Rachel Maddow getting equal time). All that's needed is to educate them that these two things are not the same thing. That net neutrality is about stopping censorship by Comcast, et al.
>>>there's never been a case of a government using its regulatory power to curtail free speech :-\
That isn't even close to accurate. The US and State governments have curtailed free speech (and the right to peaceably assemble) many, many times during the past two decades. I would give you a list, but I'd need a thousand pages to list all of the examples. You're better off to start with "free speech zones" (funny - the Constitution doesn't include any such limit) and expand your research outward from there.
>>>It's not provider neutrality that I see as most important but backbone neutrality.
Precisely.
In the ideal world the Internet line would be just like the telephone line, where you can choose from dozens of companies for service. Also I'm curious what the ACLU means by "Freedom of expression isn't worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free." Forums, like slashdot, are privately owned. You DON'T have a right to free speech. You have a right to obey the rules of the forum sysop, even if he's a tyrant. It's his domain; his rules.
Three cheers for conformity! "I Want To Be A Clone" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksP2jYr7mS8
Calm down Apple fans - I own a Mac too
(all the way back to the Quadra days).
It's chust a choke!
Surely the small parabolic dish is more compact/efficient than an antenna array? I looked at the article but it doesn't show any pictures of what these new antennas would look like.
It would be cool if something like this could be used to replace the big, bulky antennas needed for Broadcast TV and Radio.
I use the Channel Master CM4228 which sits right next to my set on its own stand. It can get channels 7-51
You won't get many channels in Alaska. Might be better of going with Dish Network for just $32.50 per month.
>>>While Wikipedia... is simply wrong.
Even if we assume wiki is wrong, there's TONS of other references. Google finds *several million* of them. So are these millions of writers (plus the FACT Mattel, Coleco, Atari were bankrupted) are completely wrong? And a solitary /. dude is right? Suuuuuure.
>>>Video games where not dead,
Right. People just write multi-page articles about things that never happened? I guess this article I'm about to quote is an ILLUZIONS and doesn't exist? You're probably one of those NUTTERS who thinks the moon landing enver happened either, or that the Dot-Com Crash of 2000 is mythology. Dumb fuck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
The '''North American video game crash of 1983''' (sometimes known as the '''[[Atari, Inc.|Atari]] Debacle''' or the '''video game crash of 1983 and 1984''' because it was in that year that the full effects of the crash became apparent to consumers) brought an abrupt end to what is considered the [[History of video game consoles (second generation)|second generation]] of console video gaming in North America. It almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the [[bankruptcy]] of several companies producing [[home computer]]s and [[video game console]]s in [[North America]]. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] (NES), which was released in North America in {{vgy|1985}} and became extremely popular by {{vgy|1987}}.{{cite journal |author=Consalvo, Mia |year=2006 |title=Console video games and global corporations: Creating a hybrid culture |journal=New Media Society |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=117-137 |doi=10.1177/1461444806059921 |url=http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/117 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080228191914/http://intl-nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/1/117.pdf |archivedate=2008-02-28 |format=PDF}}
There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was supersaturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games.
== Causes and factors ==
The American video game console crash of 1983 was caused by a combination of factors. Although some were more important than others, all played a role in saturating, and then imploding, the video game industry.
=== Plethora of games and consoles ===
At the time of the US crash, there were numerous consoles on the market, including the [[Atari 2600]], the [[Atari 5200]], the [[Bally Astrocade]], the [[ColecoVision]], the Coleco Gemini (a 2600 clone), the [[Emerson Arcadia 2001]], the [[Fairchild Channel F|Fairchild Channel F System II]], the [[Odyssey 2|Magnavox Odyssey2]], the [[Mattel]] [[Intellivision]] (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the [[Intellivision II]]), the [[Sears]] Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the TandyvisioN (an Intellivision clone for [[Radio Shack]]), and the [[Vectrex]].
Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries. Likewise, many of these same companies announced yet another generation of consoles for {{vgy|1984}}, such as the [[Odyssey3]], and [[Atari 7800]].{{cite news| last = Taylor| first = Alexander L. III| title = Pac-Man Finally Meets His Match| publisher = Time Magazine|date=1982-12-20| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923197,00.html| accessdate = 2006-12-04 }}
Adding to the industry's woes was a glut of poor titles from hastily financed startup companies. These games, combined with weak high-profile Atari 2600 games, such as the [[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|video game version]] of the hit movie ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]'' and an [[Pac-Man (Atari 2600)|infamous port]] of the popular [[arcade game]] ''[[Pac-Man]]'', seriously damaged the reputation of the industry. Finally, Atari's market-leading [[Atari 2600|2600]], now in its sixth year, was starting to approach [[market saturation|saturation]]
>>>The US should just nationalize the last mile, treat it as a utility, and avoid all that icky anti-trust litigation.
It can't.
Antitrust legislation is constitutional (says the supreme court), but nationalization of the lines is not. There are limits to what the US Government can do.
>>>Ma Bell was broken up over illegal manipulation of the HARDWARE industry: telephones.
Comcast and other ISPs can be broken-up for the same reason: control of Set Top Boxes/hardware instead of letting customers choose their own equipment. - Also you're wrong to say Ma Bell should have kept its natural monopoly. Now I can choose from literally 50 different companies for long distance, in-state calls, and local service. Instead of paying the outrageous 50 cents/minute Ma Monopoly charged, I can choose cheaper alternatives (as low as 5 cents). Choice is better because it puts control in the hands of the citizen, where it belongs.
I'm surprised the EU has not spoken-up, to tell the US to stop interfering with its domestic policies.
Also surprised the US hasn't tried to assassinate Assange yet.
But there's no reason to keep secret operations that have over a month ago.
The People aka the boss have a right to know what their government is doing, so when the government does objectionable things (like killing children or other innocents), the people can demand that it be stopped.
I've seen posts modded "redundant" even though they were the first posted. /. really needs to hire better mods.
>>>The problem with your argument is that it assumes scientists are always right and are always better able to conduct public policy than politicians
No.
The problem is that the Canadian Government wants to muzzle scientists' mouths. We may not agree with their views but that's no reason to silence them. Liberated speech is one of the most basic rights. The muzzling of speech is the purview of tyrants.
>>>the NES isn't dead or abandoned.
On the day when a console stops being manufactured on the assembly line, that's when it's dead. For example Atari 2600/VCS stopped in 1992. Ditto the C=64 computer. Off the top of my head, I recall NES ceased manufacture in 1996.
Sure the games might still live-on via emulation, just like some people still drive Model T's, but the model has been retired from production.
>>>"Elite" being ported to more platforms than any other game, though it was strictly a non-console game due to the number of command keys needed.
"Strictly" a non-console game?
Elite does exist on the NES console.
As for most-ported game it's probably "Ms. Pac-Man" which exists on all 3 Atari consoles, possibly Jaguar too?, Intellivision, Colecovision, all the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit computers of the 1980s, plus the NES, PS1, N64, PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.
>>>It is a myth that was generated because the Atari 2600 finally died
Sorry. Not a myth. For whatever reason* consumers lost interest in videogame consoles, and Christmas 1982 barely sold any games at all. 1983 was even worse. It killed Mattel's Intellivision, killed Colecovision, and almost killed Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 too. You can read more about it on Wikipedia if you search for 1983 Videogame Crash.
In 1984 the game console market was considered as "dead" as pinball. Then came the Japanese Nintendo & Sega companies in 1985-86 who revived it.
*
* One theory is people bought computers instead of consoles.
* Another is that it was just a side effect of the 1982-83 economic recession - people stopped spending money on "toys" like game consoles.
>>>terrible quality HD?
And also feeding SD channels (like MTV) with the top/bottom chopped off to try and trick customers to think it is widescreen! Bastards. I get my HD programming off the antenna, which is typically 15 Mbit/s rather than Comcast's squeezed 7 Mbit/s HD.
>>>another customer on the same node with bad equipment spewing noise into the upstream channel can also knock you offline
I'm glad I don't have to share the line on my DSL.
The US should be breaking-up these monopolies, the same way it broke-up the AT&T monopoly.
Also: 1.5 is it? My DSL goes up to 7.0 guaranteed, although I opted for the cheaper and slower $15 plan.
ABC, CBS, and NBC also funded the GOP.
And the DNC. That's how corporations operate - pay-off both sides, and then demand favors from the winner.
>>>anytime you challenge the current power brokers, expect to be fried.
I guess we need to kill them first then. - or - dissolve the US (or EU) government as a "bad idea", thereby making the powerbrokers powerless.
Personally I'd like to see a return to the Article of Confederation, with just a few modifications.