Well, they wouldn't be in that position if they'd tried actually innovating over the last decade instead of running around shrieking about piracy. Instead they let another company monopolise their newest distribution channel.
If they want a strong competitor to Apple, they're going to have to play nicely with others and somehow beat Apple on prices or features, neither of which they're likely to let Google do.
Re:Affordable replacement for something paid for
on
The F-35 Story
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· Score: 1
With the possible exception of STOVL, the JSF design doesn't offer any useful capabilities in the future that can't be served by existing aircraft designs at a lower cost. For bombing enemies without any airforce, the F-35 is a gold-plated bomb truck whose mission could be more cheaply achieved by new-build F-16s or possibly even newer turbo-props. For penetrating high-end enemy air defenses, the F-35 isn't likely to be competitive against future Russian SAM systems (S-400, S-500) or future stealth aircraft (PAKFA and J-20) and would require assistance (B-2, F-22, cruise missiles, etc). Once (or if) those threats are down, you've got a mostly permissive airspace where legacy aircraft can operate unmolested at a lower cost. In summary, it's not stealthy enough to compete with future air threats and its too expensive to use in permissive airspace.
Unfortunately at this point, the JSF program is too big to fail and plenty of civilian and military personal have bet their careers on it, while the various services have gambled their future aircraft recapitalization on it. Expect to see the total number of aircraft built to be reduced below 800 (down from ~2500) and the cost inflate to more than $100m each (up from Lockheed Martin's promised $65m).
If it happens, I'd expect to see various bullshit-clad variants of the following argument: "We should be able to fund terrorists to protect against piracy, because piracy funds terrorism"
Is this feature really going to solve any problems, given that the typical reason for reinstalling Windows is that third-party apps or malware broke it in some way. A reinstall which then installs the same apps again isn't likely to help matters much. If malware or trojans are the problem, they're just going to adapt and hide among the legitimate apps and get reinstalled on the supposedly clean install. This leaves the user back where they started, but with the mistaken idea that their system is fixed.
The more sophisticated the attack, the smaller the pool of suspects. An attack only needs to be sophisticated enough to succeed and additional complexity may cause additional problems. If an attacker achieves their goals with a unsophisticated attack, then they leave a larger pool of suspects for investigators to focus on.
The Soviet Union was forced to cancel their high school history exams in 1988, after admitting that constant historical revisionism had left the history texts in such a state that they were mostly inaccurate. Repeating this mistake, for what are essentially the same reasons, would be idiotic.
(It's actually kinda weird - geeks seem to have this strange idea that all science fiction should be extrapolation based on current trends, and there's no room at all for pure fantasy with a sciencey coating)
I'm guessing geeks get shitty with fantasy with a science coating because it's often served up to them as being hard science fiction. Both are pleasant, but it's annoying to constantly receive a bait and switch between the two because most of the entertainment industry seems to believe that this fantasy masquerading as science fiction is the only type of science fiction.
If you're dumb enough to build such a PC and then install it in a hot, enclosed space where it's more likely to catch fire, then maybe you deserve a burnt PC.
They probably have some plan for a universal DRM system that everyone is forced into using, possibly similar to Steam, but less consumer friendly.
While this would be annoying for most consumers, pirates are the only beneficiary of such a scheme, as they'll only have a single target to crack. Once they do we'll probably see a continual arms race between pirates and publishers, with gamers being locked out of software they've paid for in the crossfire. This has the potential to be a PR nightmare for the publishers and could even lead to legal problems in some jurisdictions.
This article gives an overview of what Goldman Sachs will be giving investors and it isn't pretty.
The investor needs to put in at least $2mil and GS will take 4.5% in fees and another 5% of any profit earned. The real kicker is the investors can't sell until 2013, while GS reserves the right to cash out whenever they want without giving any warning. If the share price drops, GS will happily bail out, leaving their customers holding the bag. Again.
Overall it's an awful deal, unless you have a lot of cash to burn and somehow think that the Facebook of 2013 will be worth more than its currently overpriced 2011 version.
There's also the secondary use of silence, as in "Well we got busted doing something that most reasonable people agree is horrible, so now we're going to shut up and lay low for a few weeks, until the media finds some other overblown controversy to fixate on".
The sales tax is only 10%, which is hardly insane. The base cost for almost anything is a lot higher due to Australia's smaller, isolated market. If anyone's profiteering, its the importers and distributors, not the government or end retailers.
The dialogue, quest chains and story that ToR aims to present to players has been fairly well hyped as a main selling feature. You're saying that they're great, which I don't doubt, although I'm not sure that the average gamer is going to be all that impressed with them, since the last few years of MMOs and RPGs have essentially conditioned them to skip quest text and head wherever the quest beacon leads them. For these people, story is often the least of their concerns.
The problems with Australia's Defence procurement aren't due to corruption, but systemic managerial incompetence, paired with a continuing parade of Defence ministers who believe anything said incompetent managers tell them.
It would be brilliant for brewers to have outlet stores that sold both their product and fuel right at the brewery. Or power the distribution vehicles off the by-products.
The pricing becomes more of an insult when you play through your new $10 DLC and realise that it's barely 20 minutes of new content. Gamers won't mind buying DLC if they believe that they're getting value for money. However, if developers insist on shipping minuscule pieces of content for high prices, then gamers will soon learn that all DLC is a waste of money and should be avoided.
If your account gets hacked or otherwise compromised, you need to send copies of your ID to prove that you are the actual owner of the account to recover it. This will be a problem, unless you have a second set of ID documents for John Smith at 123 Fake Street.
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My only gripe is the separation of networks PSN and XBox Live, how wicked would it be if they were linked in someway.
Yeah, letting fanboys for both systems flame each other during games will surely make for a fun time.
Why not get the Christo-fascists involved and let them know that Sam's Club is refusing to sell the bible? Should be entertaining.
Why does someone have to buy T-Mobile?
not a giant player who dictates terms to THEM...
Well, they wouldn't be in that position if they'd tried actually innovating over the last decade instead of running around shrieking about piracy. Instead they let another company monopolise their newest distribution channel.
If they want a strong competitor to Apple, they're going to have to play nicely with others and somehow beat Apple on prices or features, neither of which they're likely to let Google do.
With the possible exception of STOVL, the JSF design doesn't offer any useful capabilities in the future that can't be served by existing aircraft designs at a lower cost. For bombing enemies without any airforce, the F-35 is a gold-plated bomb truck whose mission could be more cheaply achieved by new-build F-16s or possibly even newer turbo-props. For penetrating high-end enemy air defenses, the F-35 isn't likely to be competitive against future Russian SAM systems (S-400, S-500) or future stealth aircraft (PAKFA and J-20) and would require assistance (B-2, F-22, cruise missiles, etc). Once (or if) those threats are down, you've got a mostly permissive airspace where legacy aircraft can operate unmolested at a lower cost. In summary, it's not stealthy enough to compete with future air threats and its too expensive to use in permissive airspace.
Unfortunately at this point, the JSF program is too big to fail and plenty of civilian and military personal have bet their careers on it, while the various services have gambled their future aircraft recapitalization on it. Expect to see the total number of aircraft built to be reduced below 800 (down from ~2500) and the cost inflate to more than $100m each (up from Lockheed Martin's promised $65m).
If it happens, I'd expect to see various bullshit-clad variants of the following argument: "We should be able to fund terrorists to protect against piracy, because piracy funds terrorism"
Now I can enjoy having my system exploited while watching 3D games.
Is this feature really going to solve any problems, given that the typical reason for reinstalling Windows is that third-party apps or malware broke it in some way. A reinstall which then installs the same apps again isn't likely to help matters much. If malware or trojans are the problem, they're just going to adapt and hide among the legitimate apps and get reinstalled on the supposedly clean install. This leaves the user back where they started, but with the mistaken idea that their system is fixed.
The more sophisticated the attack, the smaller the pool of suspects. An attack only needs to be sophisticated enough to succeed and additional complexity may cause additional problems. If an attacker achieves their goals with a unsophisticated attack, then they leave a larger pool of suspects for investigators to focus on.
The Soviet Union was forced to cancel their high school history exams in 1988, after admitting that constant historical revisionism had left the history texts in such a state that they were mostly inaccurate. Repeating this mistake, for what are essentially the same reasons, would be idiotic.
(It's actually kinda weird - geeks seem to have this strange idea that all science fiction should be extrapolation based on current trends, and there's no room at all for pure fantasy with a sciencey coating)
I'm guessing geeks get shitty with fantasy with a science coating because it's often served up to them as being hard science fiction. Both are pleasant, but it's annoying to constantly receive a bait and switch between the two because most of the entertainment industry seems to believe that this fantasy masquerading as science fiction is the only type of science fiction.
If you're dumb enough to build such a PC and then install it in a hot, enclosed space where it's more likely to catch fire, then maybe you deserve a burnt PC.
Like the removal of those annoying sunset provisions?
And the addition of some more pork
They probably have some plan for a universal DRM system that everyone is forced into using, possibly similar to Steam, but less consumer friendly.
While this would be annoying for most consumers, pirates are the only beneficiary of such a scheme, as they'll only have a single target to crack. Once they do we'll probably see a continual arms race between pirates and publishers, with gamers being locked out of software they've paid for in the crossfire. This has the potential to be a PR nightmare for the publishers and could even lead to legal problems in some jurisdictions.
This article gives an overview of what Goldman Sachs will be giving investors and it isn't pretty.
The investor needs to put in at least $2mil and GS will take 4.5% in fees and another 5% of any profit earned. The real kicker is the investors can't sell until 2013, while GS reserves the right to cash out whenever they want without giving any warning. If the share price drops, GS will happily bail out, leaving their customers holding the bag. Again.
Overall it's an awful deal, unless you have a lot of cash to burn and somehow think that the Facebook of 2013 will be worth more than its currently overpriced 2011 version.
There's also the secondary use of silence, as in "Well we got busted doing something that most reasonable people agree is horrible, so now we're going to shut up and lay low for a few weeks, until the media finds some other overblown controversy to fixate on".
The sales tax is only 10%, which is hardly insane. The base cost for almost anything is a lot higher due to Australia's smaller, isolated market. If anyone's profiteering, its the importers and distributors, not the government or end retailers.
The dialogue, quest chains and story that ToR aims to present to players has been fairly well hyped as a main selling feature. You're saying that they're great, which I don't doubt, although I'm not sure that the average gamer is going to be all that impressed with them, since the last few years of MMOs and RPGs have essentially conditioned them to skip quest text and head wherever the quest beacon leads them. For these people, story is often the least of their concerns.
The problems with Australia's Defence procurement aren't due to corruption, but systemic managerial incompetence, paired with a continuing parade of Defence ministers who believe anything said incompetent managers tell them.
More to the point, why the fuck would you want to embed flash within a PDF? Can anyone explain a reasonable scenario where this is a useful feature?
When half the teenagers in shopping malls adopt your investment strategy, it is time to sell.
It's OK though, because if we prevent teenagers from gathering in the malls, the bubble will never burst.
Maybe they should combine the two and harness the awesome branding power of brown?
It would be brilliant for brewers to have outlet stores that sold both their product and fuel right at the brewery. Or power the distribution vehicles off the by-products.
Yes, MADD would absolutely love that.
The pricing becomes more of an insult when you play through your new $10 DLC and realise that it's barely 20 minutes of new content. Gamers won't mind buying DLC if they believe that they're getting value for money. However, if developers insist on shipping minuscule pieces of content for high prices, then gamers will soon learn that all DLC is a waste of money and should be avoided.
If your account gets hacked or otherwise compromised, you need to send copies of your ID to prove that you are the actual owner of the account to recover it. This will be a problem, unless you have a second set of ID documents for John Smith at 123 Fake Street.