Movies cost way more to make than video games and yet a brand new Blu-Ray release is usually only $15-$20. Games priced at $50 are a ripoff.
They're completely different forms of entertainment. Try looking at it from a dollars-per-hour-of-entertainment-value perspective. If I buy a Blu-ray for $20 and I watch the film (2-3 hours?) and all of the behind-the-scenes and bonus features (2-6 hours maybe?) then I've paid about $2-3 per hour of entertainment. If I buy a $60 game and I sink 100 hours into it, I'm paying less than $1 per hour for that entertainment. I can also continue to play many games in new and undiscovered ways which drives down the hourly cost even more. I can't keep watching a film in new and interesting ways. I can't mod a film to add entirely new content to the experience. When you look at it that way, it's the Blu-ray film that's the ripoff, not the game. Although I guess if you buy a game with less than 20-30 hours of gameplay and there's nothing else new to explore, then it might be the game that's a ripoff. But most games are not like that.
Better yet, skip the Chromebook altogether and get something like the Acer Aspire E11 and then install your favorite flavor of GNU/Linux. I bought one for $199 at MicroCenter, installed a 128 GB Crucial SSD ($79), 4 GB of Crucial DDR3L memory ($39), and an Intel Wireless-AC card ($19), and then installed Ubuntu 14.04. It cost under $350, everything worked right away in Ubuntu, and now I can do whatever I'd like with it.
Try the WD TV Live. I have one, and it's awesome. Plays MKV files ripped straight from a Blu-Ray.
I really like my WD TV Live. It plays a lot of formats and has a simple but usable interface. It definitely passed the "wife test" for ease-of-use. But it has one glaring omission: no Amazon Prime streaming (see: "Online Services"). They just released a 2.0 firmware update with a bunch of new "supports [service]" notes, but Amazon is not one of them. Western Digital, I am disappoint.
At least in my world it's been declining. I was once an Ubuntu fanatic. "It's so easy," I would tell people. It passed my girlfriend test. It passed my parents test. I used Ubuntu every day for years. After 10.04 LTS, things started going downhill. Once 12.04 LTS hit the streets, things started going downhill faster. I have since switched to Ubuntu's upstream parent, Debian, with LXFE for the desktop. Clean, simple, elegant. I'll keep this.
...(beyond develop hobbies, spend time with family)...
Develop hobbies and spend time with your family.
Programming (or learning to program if you don't already know how) is a productive hobby. Get a train set. Repaint your house. Buy and restore a classic car by hand (although that can be quite expensive). Go hiking/kayaking/skiing/biking/fishing. Learn to play the guitar/bass/drums/piano/sax/trumpet/sousaphone. Have a barbeque. Build a barbeque. Go geocaching. Go geohashing. And get your kids/parents/spouse/siblings/friends/neighbors involved.
We have a particular software from a particular vendor who only pushes an update once a year. We've already pointed out several bugs and quirks in the software that have become "feature requests" for the next release (due in January 2013). On the other hand, we also have software from a vendor who pushes an update every six weeks, and then we have to get that update installed for every user that has the software because every update changes the file format and it isn't ever backward compatible!. So, if you're a major software vendor, my suggestion would be to favor structure and stability over frequent and minor patches or releases, but not so infrequent that it doesn't seem like you're paying attention to your market.
Agreed! This is an opportunity for us to protest with our wallets. Not only will I be actively pursuing non-UEFI motherboards, but I will also be actively campaigning my colleagues, coworkers, friends, and family to not buy non-UEFI machines as well. Microsoft is trying to fix a system that isn't broken. They shouldn't have to rely on securities at the hardware and BIOS level to lock down their new operating systems. They should just, you know, build a more secure operating system...
Phone calls are already encrypted. Text messages stored on the phone will be encrypted if the phone's system storage is also encrypted. Data traffic can be encrypted by forcing the use of VPN back to the company's local network (and as such, web filtering, etc. also applied).
Why am I the only one saying this? Setup Greyhole, throw a bunch of disks at it, and enjoy! And to all those saying "those drives are going to die soon", you can actually tell Greyhole that you consider a drive "broken" and it will still use most of its storage (albeit redundantly) until it does die and have to be removed.
Slashdot Mirror
For $10 a month, Fire Phone offers unlimited local and nationwide calling
Does anyone proofread these things?
Chinese stealth armor (Fallout 3)
Movies cost way more to make than video games and yet a brand new Blu-Ray release is usually only $15-$20. Games priced at $50 are a ripoff.
They're completely different forms of entertainment. Try looking at it from a dollars-per-hour-of-entertainment-value perspective. If I buy a Blu-ray for $20 and I watch the film (2-3 hours?) and all of the behind-the-scenes and bonus features (2-6 hours maybe?) then I've paid about $2-3 per hour of entertainment. If I buy a $60 game and I sink 100 hours into it, I'm paying less than $1 per hour for that entertainment. I can also continue to play many games in new and undiscovered ways which drives down the hourly cost even more. I can't keep watching a film in new and interesting ways. I can't mod a film to add entirely new content to the experience. When you look at it that way, it's the Blu-ray film that's the ripoff, not the game. Although I guess if you buy a game with less than 20-30 hours of gameplay and there's nothing else new to explore, then it might be the game that's a ripoff. But most games are not like that.
Better yet, skip the Chromebook altogether and get something like the Acer Aspire E11 and then install your favorite flavor of GNU/Linux. I bought one for $199 at MicroCenter, installed a 128 GB Crucial SSD ($79), 4 GB of Crucial DDR3L memory ($39), and an Intel Wireless-AC card ($19), and then installed Ubuntu 14.04. It cost under $350, everything worked right away in Ubuntu, and now I can do whatever I'd like with it.
I thought maybe he was the guy behind the Half-Life mod Ricochet.
Embrace, extend and extinguish
'twas nice to know you while we did!
Thanks to Gopher on YouTube for lots of awesome modding advice and hundreds of play-through videos!
Try the WD TV Live. I have one, and it's awesome. Plays MKV files ripped straight from a Blu-Ray.
I really like my WD TV Live. It plays a lot of formats and has a simple but usable interface. It definitely passed the "wife test" for ease-of-use. But it has one glaring omission: no Amazon Prime streaming (see: "Online Services"). They just released a 2.0 firmware update with a bunch of new "supports [service]" notes, but Amazon is not one of them. Western Digital, I am disappoint.
At least in my world it's been declining. I was once an Ubuntu fanatic. "It's so easy," I would tell people. It passed my girlfriend test. It passed my parents test. I used Ubuntu every day for years. After 10.04 LTS, things started going downhill. Once 12.04 LTS hit the streets, things started going downhill faster. I have since switched to Ubuntu's upstream parent, Debian, with LXFE for the desktop. Clean, simple, elegant. I'll keep this.
This is how zombie movies always start. Some new "universal" vaccine that induces growth of one type of cell. No thanks. I like being un-undead.
They're a few decades early... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waters_of_Mars
...(beyond develop hobbies, spend time with family)...
Develop hobbies and spend time with your family.
Programming (or learning to program if you don't already know how) is a productive hobby. Get a train set. Repaint your house. Buy and restore a classic car by hand (although that can be quite expensive). Go hiking/kayaking/skiing/biking/fishing. Learn to play the guitar/bass/drums/piano/sax/trumpet/sousaphone. Have a barbeque. Build a barbeque. Go geocaching. Go geohashing . And get your kids/parents/spouse/siblings/friends/neighbors involved.
I only wish I have free time for these things
"until there were no more authors anymore."
Yes, because this free market will somehow manage to write its own books. There will never be a need to generate new content, ever.
C and/or C++ will get you further than any other "modern" language.
Join an open source project that strikes your fancy, or find a niche and start your own.
These are my top three franchises...
- Fallout 3 & New Vegas
- Borderlands 1 & 2
- BioShock 1 & 2 (and Inifinite, coming soon!)
Well, plus the entire Valve catalog, but I guess that goes without saying.
It's too bad Resara shut down. Hopefully someone will pick up its pieces.
We have a particular software from a particular vendor who only pushes an update once a year. We've already pointed out several bugs and quirks in the software that have become "feature requests" for the next release (due in January 2013). On the other hand, we also have software from a vendor who pushes an update every six weeks, and then we have to get that update installed for every user that has the software because every update changes the file format and it isn't ever backward compatible! . So, if you're a major software vendor, my suggestion would be to favor structure and stability over frequent and minor patches or releases, but not so infrequent that it doesn't seem like you're paying attention to your market.
This news came to Slashdot via "The H Open".
Buy a Resara device (http://resara.com/) or roll you own (http://resara.org/).
You'll get file storage, an Active Directory-compatible domain, DNS, DHCP, etc.
Agreed! This is an opportunity for us to protest with our wallets. Not only will I be actively pursuing non-UEFI motherboards, but I will also be actively campaigning my colleagues, coworkers, friends, and family to not buy non-UEFI machines as well. Microsoft is trying to fix a system that isn't broken. They shouldn't have to rely on securities at the hardware and BIOS level to lock down their new operating systems. They should just, you know, build a more secure operating system...
I'm surprised I'm the only one suggesting this: Android Management
Phone calls are already encrypted. Text messages stored on the phone will be encrypted if the phone's system storage is also encrypted. Data traffic can be encrypted by forcing the use of VPN back to the company's local network (and as such, web filtering, etc. also applied).
Why am I the only one saying this? Setup Greyhole, throw a bunch of disks at it, and enjoy! And to all those saying "those drives are going to die soon", you can actually tell Greyhole that you consider a drive "broken" and it will still use most of its storage (albeit redundantly) until it does die and have to be removed.
I think I've been watching too much Person of Interest.
There's also PhoneGap.
http://phonegap.com/
Enyo was just released as open source, and is practically the same framework. It will even run on desktop browsers!
http://enyojs.com/