I'm starting to wonder why any Europeans will actually bother to buy the thing.
So am I. Some personal, anecdotal evidence for you: when the Wii went on pre-order on amazon.co.uk, it sold out in something like 11 minutes. The Playstation 3 went on pre-order on the same site last Thursday and at the time of writing, units were still available.
Now this means one of two things: 1. Sony have sorted out supply problems in a way that Nintendo couldn't, and are shipping vast quantities to our shores to quench our demand. 2. The Playstation 3 isn't in as much demand as Sony would like.
It's a bit worrying if even the pre-orders aren't selling. Perhaps Europe has had a chance to see what's going on in Japan and the States and are playing wait-n-see.
And this latest news regarding backward compatability is more worrying still. I'll be honest - I'm a Nintendo fanboy, and am loving the Wii. However, I was contemplating a PS3, for mainly two reasons - firstly, as a cheap(ish) high-def movie player, and secondly, so that I can play some of the PS1 and PS2 games I missed out on by never having owned a Sony system to-date. Games like Katamari Damacy, Okami, Ico. Great games exist on all platforms, and I'm hopefully not that much of a fanboy to discard genuinely good gameplay regardless of platform. However, the news about 'gimped' backward compatability makes me reconsider the PS3.
(I also think that the console looks ugly as sin, and I happen to think that aesthetics are important in my living room, but that's a different gripe altogether)
Anyway, ramble over. I hope that this issue with backward compatability is only a temporary one, and that future software updates will resolve the issues. Until then, I shall wait, and wii.
D'oh! Yes, I forgot Google. Pre-IPO, they would have been a shoe-in for the "can do no wrong" category, but recent issues over censorship and privacy means that their position there is a little tenuous. I guess overall though, we still love Google, don't we?
it's nothing more or lees than the slashdotter's psyche trying to protect itself.
I think it would be useful to provide our views on various companies, as a sort-of Slashdot corporate barometer:
Companies that can do no wrong:
Apple
Nintendo
Companines that can do no right:
Microsoft
Sony
SCO
Companies that are currently back in the fold:
IBM
Companies where there's a question-mark over our allegience:
Disney (would have been in the evil camp, but they've got Pixar and Steve Jobs now)
Electronic Arts
I can't think of any strong collective slashdot feelings towards other companies - although, of course, there are plenty of individuals with a beef against particular companies (e.g. that sorehands guy who really didn't like Mattell). Am I missing any?
Why do insist on charging way more than average for Trek stuff when the geek audience has the means to avoid playing along?
Why has this been modded-up? I'm not going to get drawn into the debate of whether it's stealing or whether it's copyright infringement, but either way, it's illegal.
Indeed. So also is his most recent book, Anansi Boys. No doubt there'll be a/. review in a few days' time. However, I have finished it, and I thought it was a good read. More humorous than American Gods, although still with that Gods-on-Earth theme. It actually reminded me of the Dirk Gently books of Douglas Adams, but if I say any more, I'd be into spoiler territory.
Re:How does this benefit customers?
on
Oracle To Buy Siebel
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I agree. I think Oracle can really position themselves as a market leader in the enterprise space, leaving only SAP as the main rival.
Oracle are in a position to provide a full-blown OSS/BSS stack (once they finally ship their billing system product). If they can bring the integration between the various apps in their business stack in-house, they get that close coupling (which may be a few years off, admittedly), then they can truly offer a Telco-in-a-Box solution, covering CRM, Billing, Payments and industry-standard hooks to third-parties. This All-in-One shop can be repeated for the other industry verticals that Siebel are traditionally strong in (Energy and Utilities, Financial Services etc).
To be honest, the people who should be worried are third-party systems integrators. Once Oracle provide a single-shop BSS/OSS solution, then a large chunk of integration income will disappear.
Re:First use of the word spam on the internet - 19
on
Broadway Awards Spam
·
· Score: 1
Presumably you are the Paul Czarnecki who had "Spam, spam, spam, Usenet, and spam" in his sig in 1987?
If so, did you actually mean to use 'Spam' as 'unsolicited post hawking an idea or selling stuff', or was it just a useful analogy for the general crapflooding of content on usenet?
According to answers.com earth is composed of roughly 10^50 atoms and the Observable universe is estimated at 10^80 to 10^85 which is 335-356 years from now, not 300-400
Thanks for the useful maths. However, why did you feel the need to correct the orignal poster's 300-400 year estimate? Your more refined estimate does not invalidate the OP. And besides, given the large number of (intelligent) guesswork in the calculations, I think it'd be more realistic to use 300-400 years than 335-356 years.
I know you were doing the +funny thing, but you've complicated matters a little. Fact is: 1) Spam 2) Profit!!! is where we're getting at, and the cause of the problem. The key to fighting spam should be as much about educating folk not to respond to spam as it is about technical (and legal) challenges against the spam-mongers.
Granted having to recall the sequence of everyone off the top of your head is one of the many pitfalls
I think that's going to be the hardest part of your solution. In fact, if Santa is obliged to remember a sequence of people anyway, why not simply sort the sequence such that all the good people come first, then followed by all the naughty people. Then all Santa needs to do is remember which person in his list is the first naughty person - assume 4 bytes for this number.
The alternative would be to have a unique id for each person - maybe adding a few bytes per person. I'd reckon a Blu-Ray DVD would do it.
Respectfully disagree. Given that the Baroque Cycle represents nearly 2400 pages of his corpus, I'd say it is certainly not atypical of his style at all.
And given that you think that Cryptonomicon is your favorite, I'm surprised you haven't noticed the stylistic and thematic cross-overs between it and the Baroque Cycle volumes.
Whilst the Baroque cycle might not be a good introduction to his works if you're a SF fan, I'd say they're certainly readable to a general lay audience. They're superb pieces of historical fiction which develop and progress the style and content of his earlier works.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg - the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
we are concerned about somebody who would be opportunistic
Mr. Pot, have you met Mr. Kettle?
Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
First off, there is a very strong rationale for his changes. He documents them fully. It is not in the interests of marketing.
Playing devil's advocate here....
Does the intention behind the author's revision actually matter in this argument? You could argue that George Lucas made Greedo shoot first as subsequent character development suggests Han wouldn't have done so. I don't subscribe to that view myself, but it's possible. At the same time, Tolkien effectively changed the actions of a principal character as he realised that their behaviour didn't make sense when viewed through the lens of its sequels.
To answer your second point, getting hold of the original Hobbit is difficult - yes, there are parallel editions, but these were only really produced in the 1980s, and genuine firsts will set you back $50,000+. At the same time, Lucas didn't exactly supress the laserdisc trilogy did he? After the second edition of the Hobbit was published, there was no reprinting of the first edition. This is equivalent to their being no DVD of the original trilogy once the Special Edition was created.
So, no, not a different kettle of fish at all.
Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 1
Sorry - I may not have clarified in my above post - Tolkien actually revised and republished The Hobbit in 1951, prior to the release of LotR.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm starting to wonder why any Europeans will actually bother to buy the thing.
So am I. Some personal, anecdotal evidence for you: when the Wii went on pre-order on amazon.co.uk, it sold out in something like 11 minutes. The Playstation 3 went on pre-order on the same site last Thursday and at the time of writing, units were still available.
Now this means one of two things:
1. Sony have sorted out supply problems in a way that Nintendo couldn't, and are shipping vast quantities to our shores to quench our demand.
2. The Playstation 3 isn't in as much demand as Sony would like.
It's a bit worrying if even the pre-orders aren't selling. Perhaps Europe has had a chance to see what's going on in Japan and the States and are playing wait-n-see.
And this latest news regarding backward compatability is more worrying still. I'll be honest - I'm a Nintendo fanboy, and am loving the Wii. However, I was contemplating a PS3, for mainly two reasons - firstly, as a cheap(ish) high-def movie player, and secondly, so that I can play some of the PS1 and PS2 games I missed out on by never having owned a Sony system to-date. Games like Katamari Damacy, Okami, Ico. Great games exist on all platforms, and I'm hopefully not that much of a fanboy to discard genuinely good gameplay regardless of platform. However, the news about 'gimped' backward compatability makes me reconsider the PS3.
(I also think that the console looks ugly as sin, and I happen to think that aesthetics are important in my living room, but that's a different gripe altogether)
Anyway, ramble over. I hope that this issue with backward compatability is only a temporary one, and that future software updates will resolve the issues. Until then, I shall wait, and wii.
This is Wiik
Damn straight. Nintendo, For The Wiiin!!
A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same way forwards and backwards.
(NAG==GAN) returns false.
D'oh! Yes, I forgot Google. Pre-IPO, they would have been a shoe-in for the "can do no wrong" category, but recent issues over censorship and privacy means that their position there is a little tenuous. I guess overall though, we still love Google, don't we?
I think it would be useful to provide our views on various companies, as a sort-of Slashdot corporate barometer:
Companies that can do no wrong:
Companines that can do no right:
Companies that are currently back in the fold:
Companies where there's a question-mark over our allegience:
I can't think of any strong collective slashdot feelings towards other companies - although, of course, there are plenty of individuals with a beef against particular companies (e.g. that sorehands guy who really didn't like Mattell). Am I missing any?
but I'm guaranteed to be one of the first people with a console when it's released...
Personally, I'm still waiting for my M2...
I think you mean 512KB of RAM, unless you pimped your Amiga something special.
Why do insist on charging way more than average for Trek stuff when the geek audience has the means to avoid playing along?
Why has this been modded-up? I'm not going to get drawn into the debate of whether it's stealing or whether it's copyright infringement, but either way, it's illegal.
This is just small part of a much bigger picture.
I don't know if that was deliberate, but I think your final sentence would make a great slogan for the new vPod:
"The video-Ipod: a small part of a much bigger picture!"
Indeed. So also is his most recent book, Anansi Boys. No doubt there'll be a /. review in a few days' time. However, I have finished it, and I thought it was a good read. More humorous than American Gods, although still with that Gods-on-Earth theme. It actually reminded me of the Dirk Gently books of Douglas Adams, but if I say any more, I'd be into spoiler territory.
I agree. I think Oracle can really position themselves as a market leader in the enterprise space, leaving only SAP as the main rival.
Oracle are in a position to provide a full-blown OSS/BSS stack (once they finally ship their billing system product). If they can bring the integration between the various apps in their business stack in-house, they get that close coupling (which may be a few years off, admittedly), then they can truly offer a Telco-in-a-Box solution, covering CRM, Billing, Payments and industry-standard hooks to third-parties. This All-in-One shop can be repeated for the other industry verticals that Siebel are traditionally strong in (Energy and Utilities, Financial Services etc).
To be honest, the people who should be worried are third-party systems integrators. Once Oracle provide a single-shop BSS/OSS solution, then a large chunk of integration income will disappear.
Presumably you are the Paul Czarnecki who had "Spam, spam, spam, Usenet, and spam" in his sig in 1987?
If so, did you actually mean to use 'Spam' as 'unsolicited post hawking an idea or selling stuff', or was it just a useful analogy for the general crapflooding of content on usenet?
According to answers.com earth is composed of roughly 10^50 atoms and the Observable universe is estimated at 10^80 to 10^85 which is 335-356 years from now, not 300-400
Thanks for the useful maths. However, why did you feel the need to correct the orignal poster's 300-400 year estimate? Your more refined estimate does not invalidate the OP. And besides, given the large number of (intelligent) guesswork in the calculations, I think it'd be more realistic to use 300-400 years than 335-356 years.
Anyway, appreciated the stats.
1) Spam
2) ???
3) Profit!!!
I know you were doing the +funny thing, but you've complicated matters a little. Fact is:
1) Spam
2) Profit!!!
is where we're getting at, and the cause of the problem. The key to fighting spam should be as much about educating folk not to respond to spam as it is about technical (and legal) challenges against the spam-mongers.
Oh my gawd... Gary Kasparov's advice helped you get laid?!
Well, Kasparov's advice was on how to mate...
Granted having to recall the sequence of everyone off the top of your head is one of the many pitfalls
I think that's going to be the hardest part of your solution. In fact, if Santa is obliged to remember a sequence of people anyway, why not simply sort the sequence such that all the good people come first, then followed by all the naughty people. Then all Santa needs to do is remember which person in his list is the first naughty person - assume 4 bytes for this number.
The alternative would be to have a unique id for each person - maybe adding a few bytes per person. I'd reckon a Blu-Ray DVD would do it.
How come folks such as yourself never use Buddha, Mohammed, etc.. in a vain way?
Jeez, lighten up!
We can just wait for "Tarrent on TV" to cherry pick the best ads
Or you could wait for TV on Torrent!
(Yes, yes, I know you're talking about Chris Tarrant)
As a frenchman who did not vote for Chirac (the French president)
Way off topic, but did you vote for Le Pen, then?
Respectfully disagree. Given that the Baroque Cycle represents nearly 2400 pages of his corpus, I'd say it is certainly not atypical of his style at all.
And given that you think that Cryptonomicon is your favorite, I'm surprised you haven't noticed the stylistic and thematic cross-overs between it and the Baroque Cycle volumes.
Whilst the Baroque cycle might not be a good introduction to his works if you're a SF fan, I'd say they're certainly readable to a general lay audience. They're superb pieces of historical fiction which develop and progress the style and content of his earlier works.
Better still, have a DAB digital radio receiver. I would happily shell out for a decent personal DAB radio with multi-gigabyte digital music storage.
Is it that much to ask?
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg - the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
we are concerned about somebody who would be opportunistic
Mr. Pot, have you met Mr. Kettle?
First off, there is a very strong rationale for his changes. He documents them fully. It is not in the interests of marketing.
Playing devil's advocate here....
Does the intention behind the author's revision actually matter in this argument? You could argue that George Lucas made Greedo shoot first as subsequent character development suggests Han wouldn't have done so. I don't subscribe to that view myself, but it's possible. At the same time, Tolkien effectively changed the actions of a principal character as he realised that their behaviour didn't make sense when viewed through the lens of its sequels.
To answer your second point, getting hold of the original Hobbit is difficult - yes, there are parallel editions, but these were only really produced in the 1980s, and genuine firsts will set you back $50,000+. At the same time, Lucas didn't exactly supress the laserdisc trilogy did he? After the second edition of the Hobbit was published, there was no reprinting of the first edition. This is equivalent to their being no DVD of the original trilogy once the Special Edition was created.
So, no, not a different kettle of fish at all.
Sorry - I may not have clarified in my above post - Tolkien actually revised and republished The Hobbit in 1951, prior to the release of LotR.