Re:Vague answers for overly-broad questions...
on
Why Do Games Sell?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Well marketed crap is still crap.
Starcraft is still being sold, now over 8 years past it's release date because it is a great game. There are a lot of games that were marketed harder and not as profitable. Sorry, I don't have numbers or names to back this up. I'm looking forward to seeing some replies with well marketed busts and less marketed winners.
I just realized I chose a poor example vs pricepoint. Look at this. This unit has been on the market since 2001 and features a waterproof power port. This new unit is also a good represenative. Phil
I sell marine GPS units. Waterproof (JIS7) GPS units have exposed USB connectors, power connectors and more, but are still watertight even without the dust caps on. It is sad to see the need for caps that must be replaced to guarentee watertightness. Phil
Works great as a chat interface even when talking to tech support. Works great as a message board when your people come into work and the message is in startup for network boot. It is stable, and functional. Not pretty, or feature full, but that's not important.
I consider quick less than a minuit. 60 seconds. I am still primarily using an old computer, a dual p-pro in fact, not quite upgraded to the max. not quite worth upgrading to the max either. For a 9 year old machine it is great! Boot time into 2K is close to 30 min. Start it up and get a drink, talk on phone, tie some flies...
Boot time into Linux is not any better. The plus side of linux is uptime typically exceeds 30 days. No boot up time then.
My up-time is limited by the flakey power in my neighborhood. I loose power on average once a month, sometimes more often.
My home PC is used for surfing, some graphics, playing games, word processing. I don't need power, I need reliability. I fear the long tail of product life, and that is all.
I will not upgrade this machine on credit, it is not necessary for work. I will use it till it dies or till I can pay cash for an upgrade.
I agree! In Ohio there were two non-smoking issues. I am a non-smoker and go to non-smoking restraunts, bars etc when I can.
The first issue was a rigorous fine($) laden pice of work. It meant that small businesses would fold under the penalties because someone lit up.
The second issue was a well thought out bit that called for seperated smoking/non-smoking facilities. Short(ish) sweet, allows for small businesses to make decisions based on their clientel. OK, may not be best on workers rights vs secondhand smoke, but easy to impliment, and proven to work in some municipalities. I voted that down because it was an amendment. Smoking and non-smoking does not belong in the Ohio constitution in my humble opinion.
I have yet to cast a complete ballot. I have abstained on many items on every ballot I have cast because I don't care which 6 of 10 judges running for election win. I tend to vote vs candidate issues. Pro-this, anti-that. If I have a reason to "go with the other guy" against the issues, it means that the person who I tend to agree with did something stupid.
In one local represenative race for city council, I had it down to two of 8 people. The person I voted for was helping greet at the polls for my precinct (he lives down the block from me it turns out). He was one of the two I agree with. He got my vote because I saw his face. If the other guy would have been there I would have voted differently. If someone else would have been there, I would have still chose one of the two.
I tend to vote most issues-they are more important than the "who" and are also much easier to research. This means that I voted to less than half the ballot, and abstained the rest. Over half the ballot had people I researched and the result was "are you qualified and credentialed for this position?" That was all the information given in my research sources. They all were, I abstained from the popularity contest.
Most issues affect daily life as a consumer and property owner. "Will my taxes increase?" "Will the local zoo stay a nice place for my family?" "Can I still smoke/not smoke at my favorite pub?" "Will minimum wage increase/decrease?"
Being an ill-informed voter should not stop you from voting on the few items that you have become informed about. You can also send for the absintee ballot which usually has much good information. I looked at those forms a few days ago when starting my research.
Phil
with apologies about my spelling - no spell check on this computer.
You know, It's not that unusual for my company to have business meeting at a local pub. The place has to serve food, and we can write off the meal, and usually one or two drinks fit in the standard budget. If the meeting involves Corporate, then no recipts are necessary. Truth is this is the only way our local quarterly staff meetings can be held. Bribe us with food and beer!
I suspect you are using the Garmin Rino. FRS/GMRS 2 way radio with GPS.
This technology has been in the marine industry (Recreational portions too) since 1988. It is a USCG supported system called Digital Selective Calling or DSC for short. The system allows for Marine band VHF radios to communicate on a digital level to send data. It is instrumental on "Good Samaritan" rescues on the water, as it allows a general distress to be sent with your coordinates included.
An additional benefit is the ability to do position send/position request. This means that if you and your buddies decied to set up a group of charter fishing boats (people pay you to go fishing with them) you can use this feature that is on all new fixed mount radios, including economy models, instead of spending $100 extra per vessel for a scrambler to be installed in your high end, expensive, radio. This keeps the general public from ruining your day by crowding you and your clients out of the good fishing spots.
Now with this phone will do point to point navigation instead of just street navigation I'll really consider it. Make it waterproof too and I'll take it. Too many GPS products are restricted in their features to the point where they are useless if you have to "walk out" from a rural area, or find your way back to deer camp, not to mention the whole fishing argument.
Maybe having a hands-free setup and having the transmitter by the "package" is a problem. Sperm are sensitive to temprature. Too high and they kick off.
This still merits more investigation. The first step in infertility treatment is to check the man and his sperm. Self-reporting on habits is reasonable.
Locks are for the honest. Any door in my HS that was not deadbolted (any many of those too) could be opened with a small pocket knife. Just push the latch over through the door jamb crack, and pull. Most doors would open on the first try. Also keep a 3/16 allen wrench on hand to unlock windows.
Yea, that's me. Remember the pentium pro? My machine has two of them. Overclocked. Screaming away at 233mhz. Charging through with 256MB ram. After 8 years with the same machine I almost don't want to upgrade.
I have a new-to-me machine. It's a PIII 700mhz. The problem is that most of the ram was removed from it so it only has 192MB. My dual ppro is faster! Alas, I am unsure of what to do. I guess I need a better paying job.
I'm running firefox in KDE on Slackware. Is this why I keep getting the error "Script unresponsive" You are right. It sucks. Slashdot's new comment system is better, but still seems to throw that error every now and again. What is nice is I can terminate the script and continue to view the webpage.
If you lack a closet that is available, you can build a cabinet or a closet to house the server. I (for a few weeks) had a PC in a kitchen cabinet for a while without anything but ambient (no) airflow and no special vents. It did get quite warm, but there are options to refrigerate that kind of space.
The option of cutting up a fridge isn't bad really, as long as you can controll the humidity issues that result. The truth is that the humidity will remain low as long as you don't store foodstuff in it. There are also some chemical dehumidifiers available using a salt like calcium cloride that can insure dryness.
As efficiency goes, a typical household fridge has an actual COP of around 5. This means that a fridge with a 2 amps motor removes 10 amps of energy from the cabinet. It watts that means (at 120Vac) 240 watts of electricity removes 1200 watts of heat. This should handle the care and feeding of a server or possibly two.
Now in reality, I don't know the consumption of a new machine. The machines I work with have 300-500 watt power supplies. I keep them in the basement with a dehumidifier/air filter. They are off the floor in case of slight flooding. My machines are also "toys" and old enough to be worthless.
Someone please check my math and find some actual COP numbers. I used a Thermo textbook example;)
My employer bases their id number on the number of people hired before you. As a result of a corporate merger, many people (including myself) were hired all at once causing my former boss to be upset. Her ID ends in 70 and my name is alphabetically one before hers. That was a running joke for a while after her girlfriend figured the numbering out. Phil
I know brown-outs will cause the life of the m-board to become short. The same dorm I lived in with the heat problems also had some electrical issues. The computer I started school with lost both drive controllers and had a crippled video card before I upgraded to what I have now. Amazingly I gave the machine to a friend who used it till I graduated. It was little more than a glorified word processor by that time though. Phil
You have a good point about cooling. I had terrible luck with a removeable disk drive. I had it replaced at least 3x. The company folded so I had no recourse. I concluded that the drive was overheating as the ejected cartridge would be untouchably hot. People now call me a little crazy about cooling. I atribute the very long life of my curent computer to it sounding like a vaccume cleaner with it's 7 fans. That's 2 regular case fans, two midgit fans in a HDD cooler, one slot fan against the video card, and two processor fansin a dual p-pro system(overclocked of course).
As a side note the dorm I lived in would top 100F regularly. I saw this alone kill many classmates machines. Phil
That's called "good customer sevice" It's becomming rare.
My last hard drive experience was several years ago. It was a nightmare. The M-board in the computer I had was only capable of 4.2GB, I bought a 4GB drive which shortly failed. I sent it in for a replacement and recieved a 13.6GB drive in exchange! I then learned about the Promise UDMA33 controller, and still use the drive and computer today. It is an effective Linux box. Phil
My wife uses the browser capabilities to block popups, but not ads. I haven't even convinced her that Firefox is the appropriate "upgrade" for netscape. She thinks that Firefox is a Linux only app. She still perfers IE. I muck about with her computer on a regular basis to keep things under controll.
Obviously you have not played on the game sites like http://www.pogo.com/. Personaly I think they are a waste of time,, but I know a lot of people (my wife included) love the "free" online games. If you haven't seen the site, you are forced to sit through a 30 second display of an ad every game, or several games you play. Phil
Slashdot Mirror
Well marketed crap is still crap.
Starcraft is still being sold, now over 8 years past it's release date because it is a great game. There are a lot of games that were marketed harder and not as profitable.
Sorry, I don't have numbers or names to back this up. I'm looking forward to seeing some replies with well marketed busts and less marketed winners.
Phil
I just realized I chose a poor example vs pricepoint. Look at this. This unit has been on the market since 2001 and features a waterproof power port. This new unit is also a good represenative.
Phil
I sell marine GPS units. Waterproof (JIS7) GPS units have exposed USB connectors, power connectors and more, but are still watertight even without the dust caps on. It is sad to see the need for caps that must be replaced to guarentee watertightness.
Phil
Works great as a chat interface even when talking to tech support. Works great as a message board when your people come into work and the message is in startup for network boot. It is stable, and functional. Not pretty, or feature full, but that's not important.
Phil
I consider quick less than a minuit. 60 seconds. I am still primarily using an old computer, a dual p-pro in fact, not quite upgraded to the max. not quite worth upgrading to the max either. For a 9 year old machine it is great! Boot time into 2K is close to 30 min. Start it up and get a drink, talk on phone, tie some flies...
Boot time into Linux is not any better. The plus side of linux is uptime typically exceeds 30 days. No boot up time then.
My up-time is limited by the flakey power in my neighborhood. I loose power on average once a month, sometimes more often.
My home PC is used for surfing, some graphics, playing games, word processing. I don't need power, I need reliability. I fear the long tail of product life, and that is all.
I will not upgrade this machine on credit, it is not necessary for work. I will use it till it dies or till I can pay cash for an upgrade.
Phil
I agree! In Ohio there were two non-smoking issues. I am a non-smoker and go to non-smoking restraunts, bars etc when I can.
The first issue was a rigorous fine($) laden pice of work. It meant that small businesses would fold under the penalties because someone lit up.
The second issue was a well thought out bit that called for seperated smoking/non-smoking facilities. Short(ish) sweet, allows for small businesses to make decisions based on their clientel. OK, may not be best on workers rights vs secondhand smoke, but easy to impliment, and proven to work in some municipalities. I voted that down because it was an amendment. Smoking and non-smoking does not belong in the Ohio constitution in my humble opinion.
Phil
I have yet to cast a complete ballot. I have abstained on many items on every ballot I have cast because I don't care which 6 of 10 judges running for election win. I tend to vote vs candidate issues. Pro-this, anti-that. If I have a reason to "go with the other guy" against the issues, it means that the person who I tend to agree with did something stupid.
In one local represenative race for city council, I had it down to two of 8 people. The person I voted for was helping greet at the polls for my precinct (he lives down the block from me it turns out). He was one of the two I agree with. He got my vote because I saw his face. If the other guy would have been there I would have voted differently. If someone else would have been there, I would have still chose one of the two.
I tend to vote most issues-they are more important than the "who" and are also much easier to research. This means that I voted to less than half the ballot, and abstained the rest. Over half the ballot had people I researched and the result was "are you qualified and credentialed for this position?" That was all the information given in my research sources. They all were, I abstained from the popularity contest.
Most issues affect daily life as a consumer and property owner. "Will my taxes increase?" "Will the local zoo stay a nice place for my family?" "Can I still smoke/not smoke at my favorite pub?" "Will minimum wage increase/decrease?"
Being an ill-informed voter should not stop you from voting on the few items that you have become informed about. You can also send for the absintee ballot which usually has much good information. I looked at those forms a few days ago when starting my research.
Phil
with apologies about my spelling - no spell check on this computer.
You know, It's not that unusual for my company to have business meeting at a local pub. The place has to serve food, and we can write off the meal, and usually one or two drinks fit in the standard budget. If the meeting involves Corporate, then no recipts are necessary. Truth is this is the only way our local quarterly staff meetings can be held. Bribe us with food and beer!
Phil
I suspect you are using the Garmin Rino. FRS/GMRS 2 way radio with GPS.
This technology has been in the marine industry (Recreational portions too) since 1988. It is a USCG supported system called Digital Selective Calling or DSC for short. The system allows for Marine band VHF radios to communicate on a digital level to send data. It is instrumental on "Good Samaritan" rescues on the water, as it allows a general distress to be sent with your coordinates included.
An additional benefit is the ability to do position send/position request. This means that if you and your buddies decied to set up a group of charter fishing boats (people pay you to go fishing with them) you can use this feature that is on all new fixed mount radios, including economy models, instead of spending $100 extra per vessel for a scrambler to be installed in your high end, expensive, radio. This keeps the general public from ruining your day by crowding you and your clients out of the good fishing spots.
Now with this phone will do point to point navigation instead of just street navigation I'll really consider it. Make it waterproof too and I'll take it. Too many GPS products are restricted in their features to the point where they are useless if you have to "walk out" from a rural area, or find your way back to deer camp, not to mention the whole fishing argument.
Phil
Maybe having a hands-free setup and having the transmitter by the "package" is a problem. Sperm are sensitive to temprature. Too high and they kick off.
This still merits more investigation. The first step in infertility treatment is to check the man and his sperm. Self-reporting on habits is reasonable.
Phil
Locks are for the honest. Any door in my HS that was not deadbolted (any many of those too) could be opened with a small pocket knife. Just push the latch over through the door jamb crack, and pull. Most doors would open on the first try. Also keep a 3/16 allen wrench on hand to unlock windows.
I *never* got into mischief.
Phil
There should be a help link that brings up a short-and-sweet dialogue that has an explaniation on how to manage your stored passwords and such.
Phil
Yea, that's me. Remember the pentium pro? My machine has two of them. Overclocked. Screaming away at 233mhz. Charging through with 256MB ram. After 8 years with the same machine I almost don't want to upgrade.
I have a new-to-me machine. It's a PIII 700mhz. The problem is that most of the ram was removed from it so it only has 192MB. My dual ppro is faster! Alas, I am unsure of what to do. I guess I need a better paying job.
Phil
I'm running firefox in KDE on Slackware. Is this why I keep getting the error "Script unresponsive"
You are right. It sucks. Slashdot's new comment system is better, but still seems to throw that error every now and again.
What is nice is I can terminate the script and continue to view the webpage.
Phil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_perfor mance
Phil
If you lack a closet that is available, you can build a cabinet or a closet to house the server. I (for a few weeks) had a PC in a kitchen cabinet for a while without anything but ambient (no) airflow and no special vents. It did get quite warm, but there are options to refrigerate that kind of space.
;)
The option of cutting up a fridge isn't bad really, as long as you can controll the humidity issues that result. The truth is that the humidity will remain low as long as you don't store foodstuff in it. There are also some chemical dehumidifiers available using a salt like calcium cloride that can insure dryness.
As efficiency goes, a typical household fridge has an actual COP of around 5. This means that a fridge with a 2 amps motor removes 10 amps of energy from the cabinet. It watts that means (at 120Vac) 240 watts of electricity removes 1200 watts of heat. This should handle the care and feeding of a server or possibly two.
Now in reality, I don't know the consumption of a new machine. The machines I work with have 300-500 watt power supplies. I keep them in the basement with a dehumidifier/air filter. They are off the floor in case of slight flooding. My machines are also "toys" and old enough to be worthless.
Someone please check my math and find some actual COP numbers. I used a Thermo textbook example
Phil
My employer bases their id number on the number of people hired before you. As a result of a corporate merger, many people (including myself) were hired all at once causing my former boss to be upset. Her ID ends in 70 and my name is alphabetically one before hers. That was a running joke for a while after her girlfriend figured the numbering out.
Phil
That's hysterical!
Phil
Seconded. Happily hitched for 3 years and counting!
Maybe we should do poll on the marital status/relationship status of Slashdot?
Phil
I know brown-outs will cause the life of the m-board to become short. The same dorm I lived in with the heat problems also had some electrical issues. The computer I started school with lost both drive controllers and had a crippled video card before I upgraded to what I have now. Amazingly I gave the machine to a friend who used it till I graduated. It was little more than a glorified word processor by that time though.
Phil
Four words:
Steam heat.
No thermostat.
Phil
You have a good point about cooling. I had terrible luck with a removeable disk drive. I had it replaced at least 3x. The company folded so I had no recourse. I concluded that the drive was overheating as the ejected cartridge would be untouchably hot. People now call me a little crazy about cooling. I atribute the very long life of my curent computer to it sounding like a vaccume cleaner with it's 7 fans. That's 2 regular case fans, two midgit fans in a HDD cooler, one slot fan against the video card, and two processor fansin a dual p-pro system(overclocked of course).
As a side note the dorm I lived in would top 100F regularly. I saw this alone kill many classmates machines.
Phil
That's called "good customer sevice" It's becomming rare.
My last hard drive experience was several years ago. It was a nightmare. The M-board in the computer I had was only capable of 4.2GB, I bought a 4GB drive which shortly failed. I sent it in for a replacement and recieved a 13.6GB drive in exchange! I then learned about the Promise UDMA33 controller, and still use the drive and computer today. It is an effective Linux box.
Phil
My wife uses the browser capabilities to block popups, but not ads. I haven't even convinced her that Firefox is the appropriate "upgrade" for netscape. She thinks that Firefox is a Linux only app. She still perfers IE. I muck about with her computer on a regular basis to keep things under controll.
Obviously you have not played on the game sites like http://www.pogo.com/. Personaly I think they are a waste of time,, but I know a lot of people (my wife included) love the "free" online games. If you haven't seen the site, you are forced to sit through a 30 second display of an ad every game, or several games you play.
Phil