Suppose a company has a product like oil, or a drug, and charges so much for it that the company makes many billions in profit. The owners and top executives are worth billions thanks to the company. While it's good to give away the wealth eventually, it would have been better to not sap quite so much money from the public in the first place.
(The Economic Policy Institute) concluded that if Wal-Mart reduced its profit margin to about 2.9 percent, where it stood in 1997, from the 3.6 percent margin it recorded last year, that would free up some $2.3 billion to pay workers without raising prices. That works out to just under $2,100 per non-managerial employee, the researchers calculated.
Isix was the company, but yeah. I was wondering how their InstaSwitch technology would have worked. I suppose for Night Trap the limit was that no more than four videos could be happening in the rooms at one time?
The NEMO was an interesting idea. Load times would have stunk, but I assume the tapes would have had data capabilities too, meaning lots and lots of graphics, limited only by whichever 1.72MHz or 3.58MHz chip ran the box. Getting third party developers would have been the greatest challenge, and with no support from Japan, I doubt it would have survived more than a year.
Just a few days ago I found some guy had made a 60MB movie of his near-perfect run of the 3DO Night Trap. I never had a SegaCD, but I find the movie hilarious. I'd like to extract the movies off the game discs, but there aren't any tools. One guy said he made one once for the SegaCD, but he hasn't returned my e-mail yet. I'm quite pleased to discover though that since just a month ago, the Gens32_Surreal emulator now has save state support for SegaCD games. This means that I can go through the 32X version of Night Trap and capture the complete videos before restoring a save state and jumping to another room to activate a trap. I'm working on getting that 32X copy.
Sega was only one of MANY companies to waste time with FMV. They thought the games would be fun, and in fact some of them were. Of course the Sega CD was superior to the SNES. The Genesis alone could handle more sprites before slowdown than the SNES.
The fundamental problem was the Genesis' 64 color limit. Eventually developers alternated colors on the odd and even frames to fake more colors, but that doesn't work on fast moving games or FMV. The TurboGrafx 16 could do 512 colors. If the Genesis had that, or even 128 or 256, it would have been the clear victor in North America, and probably the Sega CD would have sold many more millions of units.
The Saturn was the better system for 2D, but only a few dozen programmers world-wide were good enough to program 3D in assembler instead of C to fully use both 28MHz chips. That made a huge difference in the Playstation's win with it's single 33MHz CPU. Programming the Saturn in C made it less powerful 3D-wise than the PS.
Oh, and don't forget Sony lied and over-spec'd the PS2's performance. Marketing by deceit helped keep people from buying a Dreamcast. If you remember, the Dreamcast version of DOA2 looked better than the PS2's since it had anti-aliasing and better textures.
Not true. The Master System was a hit in Europe, as was the Mega Drive/Genesis. Sega lost in Japan where the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx 16 was the main competitor of both the Famicom and Super Famicom, tied in North America, and won in Europe.
You either forgot or didn't know that the head of SOA helped kill the Saturn too. By implementing a 5-star-games-only policy, many good but imperfect Japanese games were never ported to North America. So an already anemic library was reduced even further.
Furthermore, the 32X as a stop-gap was a horrible strategy. Yes a Genesis+32X would cost about $220, or less than a Playstation, but there's no CDROM drive! Worse, the 32X had dual Hitachi chips running at 23 MHz, while the Saturn had dual 28MHz chips. Meaning that the 32X wasn't nearly as good as the Playstation for doing 3D.
It's simple really, the Sega CD sold 6 million units world-wide. Compare that to Sega later stating it would continue to support the Dreamcast if 5 million units sold. Now consider how many more units would have sold in 1993 and 1994 if Sega hadn't distracted the public and itself with the 32X. There would have been more games produced for the system, and more machines sold. Developers wouldn't have been screwed from the debacle, and more likely to support the Saturn. Finally, developers who wanted to develop for the next-gen console would have had an extra year to ready their titles for the Saturn instead of the 32X.
Alternatively, Sega's biggest blunder was not having the Genesis display 128 or 256 colors instead of 64. NEC's PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 could do 512 at once, at it was released in Japan in 1987. With 128 or 256 colors, the SNES would not have had such a visual advantage, and the Sega CD video would have been much more enticing.
So why did DOA2 look better on the DC than the PS2? Oh right, because programming the DC was easier and the Namco had more time to learn it than the PS2. Not to mention the fact that the DC has 8MB VRAM along with texture compression, while the PS2 has 4MB VRAM and no texture compression. Which is why PS2 games never have had textures as good as those for the DC. PS2 games too often look washed out, but not so on the DC.
You also don't know your history or you wouldn't bother bringing up the early 90s. In Japan, the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 was the dominant competitor to the NES and SNES. The Genesis was eventually outsold by the SNES in North America, but was the winner in Europe. It was a three-way fight back then, as it is now, but there's not much point in comparing, except to note that both the SNES and Wii are slower sprite and polygon-wise than their competitors.
The Japanese are heavily indoctrinated into buying new things, like toys or cell phones, long before there is any good reason to. The fact the device is a few years old and there's a new replacement is enough for them. I'd like to know how many DS owners are simply replacing theirs for a more compact model that is basically the same otherwise?
Except that Apple has no doubt toured Foxconn's factories, observing iPods being put together. Unless Foxconn did a hell of a job covering up the working conditions, Apple should have a pretty good idea what those factories are like. If Foxconn was bascially honest and Apple just wasn't paying attention or didn't care, that makes them look rotten and saying it wasn't their factory is no excuse.
So you read my replies above to deesine but you missed where I include the US government as being responsible too?
While I think representative government is likely to reduce the corruption in China, do you realize what too much liberty would do there? The place already has huge problems with population migration, desertification, and farming. More liberty isn't likely to help the rural peasants. Representative democracy could at least get more government funding shifted their way though.
As for my political association, my position is frankly more patriotic than the sociopathic corporations. I'd rather see America keep it's skilled workers employed with good jobs, and providing new ones for those in school. I want Americans getting richer, not multi-nationals and the thousand or so people at the very top. Alternatively I want to see people all over the world treated better and working in better, safer conditions, even if it costs Americans some of their wasteful, disposable lifestyle.
First off, thank you Captain Obvious for explaining why the the Chinese are being exploited so Americans can live like kings. I wasn't aware of that.
Secondly, if corporations paid more money to Foxconn and other factories in exchange for better conditions, the Chinese companies would agree, because they're getting more money.
How nice of you to excuse business' sociopathic behavior by saying that's what they're there for. Corporate charters used to be used to prevent such abuses. Before corporations had those neutered.
You note I included the USA in with the corporations. Sure it's also in the USAs interest to exploit Chinese labor, but it's just wrong. The US government should be pushing for better labor standards world-wide, even if it means its citizens have to pay $9.99 for a t-shirt instead of $7.99. It's the right thing to do. Heck, it's what Christ would do.
So you don't think public outcry could get Apple and others to insist on better labor practices where their goods are made? Then I'll tell you an alternative. Taxes on imports. If Apple wants to import iPods from China instead of making them in the USA, they can pay extra to Uncle Sam for bringing in the country. Sure it will hurt the Chinese, but that'll be more money to spend domestically. It's better than letting multi-nationals outsource most white-collar jobs along with the blue-collar ones that left a decade ago. Make it expensive for companies to move skilled jobs to India, and there's less incentive to do it.
And what if they are? Boycott? Don't do business there?
Noooo. Simply write the inspections into the contract between Apple and Foxconn. And into contracts Walmart has, and the rest of the companies. Failure on Foxconn's part to treat workers more humanely results in penalties in terms of how much money they are paid.
The USA, corporations within, and multi-nationals haven't yet made a concerted effort focused on labor conditions. Human rights has always been the biggest public focus.
I wonder how many of those workers in Apple's contract manufacturer think they are getting a raw deal.
If they had enough education, which is doubtful, they might realize that if they were only working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, Foxconn would have to hire more workers in order to keep production as high as it is currently. These workers took the job figuring it was better than prostitution or starvation, and it presumably is, but it's still a miserable one. If Foxconn hired more workers, there would be fewer people starving without a job, and the workers wouldn't be working 16 hour days.
I'm not saying that I agree with this, but let's be honest, this is not an Apple factory, this is a company that Apple contracts with, because guess what Apple doesn't make the drives, chips, and a lot of other parts that go into their products.
So I'm absolved of guilt if I hire a contractor to do some construction who then hires illegal immigrants? How very convenient that people will follow orders to shock someone (Milgram's experiment) and by your logic, they don't have to feel guilty about it.
The point is that Apple and every other company making millions in profit off of these sweatshops could afford to make a few million less and have better working conditions in the factories. By that I mean doing periodic inspections to make sure the workers have 12 hour shifts, not 16. Make sure the working conditions aren't as dangerous as they were in the USA around 1900.
Walmart makes billions in profit each year. Some real good could happen if they spent some of their influence on our government and China's to enforce 12 hour shift limits with overtime after 12 hours.
Define practical. Nike has been able to monitor its factories to stop truly sweatshop-like working situations. If it was US law that certain imported goods had to have periodic inspections at their factories, some real good could happen to world-wide labor standards. Additionally, when China wanted to join the WTO, the USA put a lot of pressure on it to end certain abuses and practices. If that pressure had been maintained, China could have had fair overtime laws and enforcement by now.
When I play console games now it's on a friend's machine. The last console I bought was a Dreamcast. Maybe I haven't been playing enough to get jaded, but I still really like playing the latest Burnout or Oblivion and seeing the pretty pictures. On plenty of genres like RTS or all too often, action games, the new consoles are a waste. Still, I'm looking forward to 2011 when physics acceleration will mean football players' limbs no longer clip through each other, and they'll tumble in much more life-like ways. I'd say with that generation, people and the field could finally stop looking like they're made of plastic.
Parents will buy 360s even if the kids want PS3s when they see the price difference, and the $800 ebay prices. Some parents are even smart enough to know there will be fun games for both systems and their child will enjoy whichever console they receive. You're stupid for forgetting that.
Hah. You're wrong because xbox 360 games coming out for Christmas are likely to look as good or better than the launch PS3 titles that haven't had the extra year to improve in development. When newspapers and the nightly news cover the hot new toys for Christmas and give their recommendations, they'll note the PS3 is extremely scarce and selling on ebay for $800. So for kids who want the best looking gaming, buy them a 360, or a Wii if your budget isn't that big.
Meh, I don't need them any smaller and harder to click. If my 19" CRT was a 19" LCD (with multiple native resolutions using technology from the future), I'd bump up from 1280x960 to 1360x1024. I don't currently because text gets too fuzzy. For a 20" I wouldn't want to go any higher than 1600x1200 except for occasional messing around in photoshop with some pictures I've taken. That's when I'd like 2048x1536.
Notice how your 20" doesn't have as high a DPI as your 14"? To be the equivalent, it ought to do 2048x1536, but virtually the only 20" screen that does that resolution is a highest-end CRT from Viewsonic or the like. 20" LCDs only do 1600x1200, while 19" ones take a huge hit to 1280x1024. I realize users will sit a little farther back from a big screen, but still, what's up with that?
Congrats, your post gives the impression you're basing your opinion of Seagate quality just on a bad experience with one 7200.9 drive. How very scientific and valid your statistics are. StorageReview.com is much more comprehensive.
In-between Battle Chess and Warcraft, Silicon & Synapse made Rock & Roll Racing and also The Lost Vikings. The first is my favorite racer-with-weapons ever, and the second is a very fun, challenging, and amusing puzzler.
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Another example would be Walmart
Isix was the company, but yeah. I was wondering how their InstaSwitch technology would have worked. I suppose for Night Trap the limit was that no more than four videos could be happening in the rooms at one time?
The NEMO was an interesting idea. Load times would have stunk, but I assume the tapes would have had data capabilities too, meaning lots and lots of graphics, limited only by whichever 1.72MHz or 3.58MHz chip ran the box. Getting third party developers would have been the greatest challenge, and with no support from Japan, I doubt it would have survived more than a year.
Just a few days ago I found some guy had made a 60MB movie of his near-perfect run of the 3DO Night Trap. I never had a SegaCD, but I find the movie hilarious. I'd like to extract the movies off the game discs, but there aren't any tools. One guy said he made one once for the SegaCD, but he hasn't returned my e-mail yet. I'm quite pleased to discover though that since just a month ago, the Gens32_Surreal emulator now has save state support for SegaCD games. This means that I can go through the 32X version of Night Trap and capture the complete videos before restoring a save state and jumping to another room to activate a trap. I'm working on getting that 32X copy.
Sega was only one of MANY companies to waste time with FMV. They thought the games would be fun, and in fact some of them were. Of course the Sega CD was superior to the SNES. The Genesis alone could handle more sprites before slowdown than the SNES.
The fundamental problem was the Genesis' 64 color limit. Eventually developers alternated colors on the odd and even frames to fake more colors, but that doesn't work on fast moving games or FMV. The TurboGrafx 16 could do 512 colors. If the Genesis had that, or even 128 or 256, it would have been the clear victor in North America, and probably the Sega CD would have sold many more millions of units.
The Saturn was the better system for 2D, but only a few dozen programmers world-wide were good enough to program 3D in assembler instead of C to fully use both 28MHz chips. That made a huge difference in the Playstation's win with it's single 33MHz CPU. Programming the Saturn in C made it less powerful 3D-wise than the PS.
Oh, and don't forget Sony lied and over-spec'd the PS2's performance. Marketing by deceit helped keep people from buying a Dreamcast. If you remember, the Dreamcast version of DOA2 looked better than the PS2's since it had anti-aliasing and better textures.
Not true. The Master System was a hit in Europe, as was the Mega Drive/Genesis. Sega lost in Japan where the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx 16 was the main competitor of both the Famicom and Super Famicom, tied in North America, and won in Europe.
You either forgot or didn't know that the head of SOA helped kill the Saturn too. By implementing a 5-star-games-only policy, many good but imperfect Japanese games were never ported to North America. So an already anemic library was reduced even further.
Furthermore, the 32X as a stop-gap was a horrible strategy. Yes a Genesis+32X would cost about $220, or less than a Playstation, but there's no CDROM drive! Worse, the 32X had dual Hitachi chips running at 23 MHz, while the Saturn had dual 28MHz chips. Meaning that the 32X wasn't nearly as good as the Playstation for doing 3D.
It's simple really, the Sega CD sold 6 million units world-wide. Compare that to Sega later stating it would continue to support the Dreamcast if 5 million units sold. Now consider how many more units would have sold in 1993 and 1994 if Sega hadn't distracted the public and itself with the 32X. There would have been more games produced for the system, and more machines sold. Developers wouldn't have been screwed from the debacle, and more likely to support the Saturn. Finally, developers who wanted to develop for the next-gen console would have had an extra year to ready their titles for the Saturn instead of the 32X.
Alternatively, Sega's biggest blunder was not having the Genesis display 128 or 256 colors instead of 64. NEC's PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 could do 512 at once, at it was released in Japan in 1987. With 128 or 256 colors, the SNES would not have had such a visual advantage, and the Sega CD video would have been much more enticing.
So why did DOA2 look better on the DC than the PS2? Oh right, because programming the DC was easier and the Namco had more time to learn it than the PS2. Not to mention the fact that the DC has 8MB VRAM along with texture compression, while the PS2 has 4MB VRAM and no texture compression. Which is why PS2 games never have had textures as good as those for the DC. PS2 games too often look washed out, but not so on the DC.
You also don't know your history or you wouldn't bother bringing up the early 90s. In Japan, the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 was the dominant competitor to the NES and SNES. The Genesis was eventually outsold by the SNES in North America, but was the winner in Europe. It was a three-way fight back then, as it is now, but there's not much point in comparing, except to note that both the SNES and Wii are slower sprite and polygon-wise than their competitors.
The Japanese are heavily indoctrinated into buying new things, like toys or cell phones, long before there is any good reason to. The fact the device is a few years old and there's a new replacement is enough for them. I'd like to know how many DS owners are simply replacing theirs for a more compact model that is basically the same otherwise?
Except that Apple has no doubt toured Foxconn's factories, observing iPods being put together. Unless Foxconn did a hell of a job covering up the working conditions, Apple should have a pretty good idea what those factories are like. If Foxconn was bascially honest and Apple just wasn't paying attention or didn't care, that makes them look rotten and saying it wasn't their factory is no excuse.
So you read my replies above to deesine but you missed where I include the US government as being responsible too?
While I think representative government is likely to reduce the corruption in China, do you realize what too much liberty would do there? The place already has huge problems with population migration, desertification, and farming. More liberty isn't likely to help the rural peasants. Representative democracy could at least get more government funding shifted their way though.
As for my political association, my position is frankly more patriotic than the sociopathic corporations. I'd rather see America keep it's skilled workers employed with good jobs, and providing new ones for those in school. I want Americans getting richer, not multi-nationals and the thousand or so people at the very top. Alternatively I want to see people all over the world treated better and working in better, safer conditions, even if it costs Americans some of their wasteful, disposable lifestyle.
First off, thank you Captain Obvious for explaining why the the Chinese are being exploited so Americans can live like kings. I wasn't aware of that.
Secondly, if corporations paid more money to Foxconn and other factories in exchange for better conditions, the Chinese companies would agree, because they're getting more money.
How nice of you to excuse business' sociopathic behavior by saying that's what they're there for. Corporate charters used to be used to prevent such abuses. Before corporations had those neutered.
You note I included the USA in with the corporations. Sure it's also in the USAs interest to exploit Chinese labor, but it's just wrong. The US government should be pushing for better labor standards world-wide, even if it means its citizens have to pay $9.99 for a t-shirt instead of $7.99. It's the right thing to do. Heck, it's what Christ would do.
So you don't think public outcry could get Apple and others to insist on better labor practices where their goods are made? Then I'll tell you an alternative. Taxes on imports. If Apple wants to import iPods from China instead of making them in the USA, they can pay extra to Uncle Sam for bringing in the country. Sure it will hurt the Chinese, but that'll be more money to spend domestically. It's better than letting multi-nationals outsource most white-collar jobs along with the blue-collar ones that left a decade ago. Make it expensive for companies to move skilled jobs to India, and there's less incentive to do it.
And what if they are? Boycott? Don't do business there?
Noooo. Simply write the inspections into the contract between Apple and Foxconn. And into contracts Walmart has, and the rest of the companies. Failure on Foxconn's part to treat workers more humanely results in penalties in terms of how much money they are paid.
The USA, corporations within, and multi-nationals haven't yet made a concerted effort focused on labor conditions. Human rights has always been the biggest public focus.
I wonder how many of those workers in Apple's contract manufacturer think they are getting a raw deal.
If they had enough education, which is doubtful, they might realize that if they were only working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, Foxconn would have to hire more workers in order to keep production as high as it is currently. These workers took the job figuring it was better than prostitution or starvation, and it presumably is, but it's still a miserable one. If Foxconn hired more workers, there would be fewer people starving without a job, and the workers wouldn't be working 16 hour days.
I'm not saying that I agree with this, but let's be honest, this is not an Apple factory, this is a company that Apple contracts with, because guess what Apple doesn't make the drives, chips, and a lot of other parts that go into their products.
So I'm absolved of guilt if I hire a contractor to do some construction who then hires illegal immigrants? How very convenient that people will follow orders to shock someone (Milgram's experiment) and by your logic, they don't have to feel guilty about it.
The point is that Apple and every other company making millions in profit off of these sweatshops could afford to make a few million less and have better working conditions in the factories. By that I mean doing periodic inspections to make sure the workers have 12 hour shifts, not 16. Make sure the working conditions aren't as dangerous as they were in the USA around 1900.
Walmart makes billions in profit each year. Some real good could happen if they spent some of their influence on our government and China's to enforce 12 hour shift limits with overtime after 12 hours.
Define practical. Nike has been able to monitor its factories to stop truly sweatshop-like working situations. If it was US law that certain imported goods had to have periodic inspections at their factories, some real good could happen to world-wide labor standards. Additionally, when China wanted to join the WTO, the USA put a lot of pressure on it to end certain abuses and practices. If that pressure had been maintained, China could have had fair overtime laws and enforcement by now.
When I play console games now it's on a friend's machine. The last console I bought was a Dreamcast. Maybe I haven't been playing enough to get jaded, but I still really like playing the latest Burnout or Oblivion and seeing the pretty pictures. On plenty of genres like RTS or all too often, action games, the new consoles are a waste. Still, I'm looking forward to 2011 when physics acceleration will mean football players' limbs no longer clip through each other, and they'll tumble in much more life-like ways. I'd say with that generation, people and the field could finally stop looking like they're made of plastic.
I saw the E3 videos and screenshots, did you?
Oblivion doesn't look crappy.
Got a link explaining how ATI botched the 360?
Parents will buy 360s even if the kids want PS3s when they see the price difference, and the $800 ebay prices. Some parents are even smart enough to know there will be fun games for both systems and their child will enjoy whichever console they receive. You're stupid for forgetting that.
Hah. You're wrong because xbox 360 games coming out for Christmas are likely to look as good or better than the launch PS3 titles that haven't had the extra year to improve in development. When newspapers and the nightly news cover the hot new toys for Christmas and give their recommendations, they'll note the PS3 is extremely scarce and selling on ebay for $800. So for kids who want the best looking gaming, buy them a 360, or a Wii if your budget isn't that big.
Big mistake. HD-DVD is out and for sale now. The sooner Sony fails, the sooner HD-DVD wins and the push will be on by studios to have it replace DVD.
Meh, I don't need them any smaller and harder to click. If my 19" CRT was a 19" LCD (with multiple native resolutions using technology from the future), I'd bump up from 1280x960 to 1360x1024. I don't currently because text gets too fuzzy. For a 20" I wouldn't want to go any higher than 1600x1200 except for occasional messing around in photoshop with some pictures I've taken. That's when I'd like 2048x1536.
What about the icons for apps, or squinting at the thumbnails to click on too-small webpages?
Notice how your 20" doesn't have as high a DPI as your 14"? To be the equivalent, it ought to do 2048x1536, but virtually the only 20" screen that does that resolution is a highest-end CRT from Viewsonic or the like. 20" LCDs only do 1600x1200, while 19" ones take a huge hit to 1280x1024. I realize users will sit a little farther back from a big screen, but still, what's up with that?
Congrats, your post gives the impression you're basing your opinion of Seagate quality just on a bad experience with one 7200.9 drive. How very scientific and valid your statistics are. StorageReview.com is much more comprehensive.
But better than crack in both ways?
In-between Battle Chess and Warcraft, Silicon & Synapse made Rock & Roll Racing and also The Lost Vikings. The first is my favorite racer-with-weapons ever, and the second is a very fun, challenging, and amusing puzzler.