When they illegally destroyed Netscape (and Netscape put out Communicator 4.8) that was a criminal offense. Was it one when the market share was 50/50?
Yes, because it was the Windows market share that mattered, not their market share in the browser sector. But the Netscape case is a bad example anyway, because it's way too complex. Good arguments could be made for why Microsoft wasn't guilty there too, and they were essentially convicted based on a technicality (bundling).
If Sony is also selling boxes at a loss to maintain a market edge, is that not also a monopoly and an illegal practice?
No, because Sony doesn't have a monopoly. They make a profit anyway, so it's a silly question.
Why? [...] But right now they're far from a monopoly [...] even though it's bankrolled by the monopoly that is Windows
You almost answered your own question. Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Using your monopoly in another sector to force out the competition, thus granting yourself a new monopoly with a different product is. If it weren't, new businesses wouldn't stand a chance, and eventually we'd just end up with one big company that had a monopoly on everything.
Why do you think the 360 is coming out *now* and not in a year or two?
Hint: It's not to beat Sony out the door, because Sony wouldn't be releasing the PS3 nearly as soon if not to keep up with Microsoft.
The Xbox 360 is designed to be inexpensive to build and sell at a profit. Even Microsoft can't afford to lose billions of dollars, especially now that they have to pay out their stash of cash as dividends. So they have to get the newer, profitable version out right away. That's also the only explination for why they deviated from the otherwise excelent architecture of the first Xbox too. Xbox was well designed - everything a PC should be - and there was no reason Xbox 2 couldn't have been the same thing with a faster processor, faster GPU, and faster memory... But you need to make a profit!
They're turning alright... Just in the other direction. This is the first step towards requiring payment for timeshifting. Want to record that show to your DVR or VCR? You have to pay. This is the beginning of the networks trying to get people back in their seats watching only one show in any particular prime time slot so their current ratings and advertisment rate paridigm will continue to work. You're *not* the customer, you're the product, and your eyes are being sold to the advertizers.
Science may be lots of things, but it is neither "specific" nor "well-defined."
You're confusing science - (the field and practice) - with "science" - (the term sometimes used to describe any research, junk or otherwise). Just because something ends with an uncertain conclusion doesn't mean it's not specific.
ID is excluded by the definitions above because there are no ascertained principles or causes, and it doesn't describe any particular skill or technique.
Summary: Not knowledge based on the observations of cause and effect, but instead a belief founded in faith and hearsay. Not a technique to obtain said knowledge. Hence, not science.
This is especially true when the newest console is only $300.
It's especially untrue if you already need a moderatly high performance PC for other things already. If you're going to have the monitor, and the CPU, and the memory already, buying a $250 video card for gaming is $50 cheaper than a $300 console.
Like I'm one to talk though... I buy the consoles, and the video card.:)
but if I lived in a "dark blue" state where there was a good rail line and inadequite parking
Where is this mythical place? I live in a "dark blue" state (Massachusetts) that has poor parking, poor roads, but poor public transit to go right along with it. And it wouldn't really matter if there was better public transit, because all those good little greenie blue-state parents would still flip the bird at the environment when it comes to their children and buy disposible everything and make the school bus stop at the bottom of every single driveway. From what I've seen, all the other "dark blue" states are the same way.
I'm almost with you on the excercising part though, except my gym has 4" screens mounted to every treadmill and eliptical already, and they're still too small to enjoy when your body is moving. Maybe they'd be OK on an exercise bike? Still, mobile video screams "niche".
Multiple Designers: Why are there so many different designs for the eye and what does that say about the designer(s)? Why does the human eye lack important innovations such as the reflective layer in the cat's eye that improves night vision or the more logical retina-over-blood network of the octopus eye or the four-color vision of the jumping spider eye (or the 6-color vision of the mantis shrimp) or the polarization sensitivity used by bees and ants for navigation? One strong hypothesis is that multiple designers participated -- different designers, working independently, created these different designs. Perhaps the joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee is really true.
Bible literalists should have no trouble believing this. The Bible, and the commandments do not say that there are no other gods. It says that God is the creator of man, and the you shouldn't worship any other gods. It is only through interpretation that this is taken to mean that God is the only god; but literalists don't interpret. Genesis doesn't say anywhere that no other creators ever came along and added to God's creation. There was no octopus, spider, bee, or ant on Noah's ark... Again, this is only implied. But the bible is meant to be taken purely at face value, right?
Of course it's silly to talk like that, because literalists are only literalists about the parts they like.
Science \Sci"ence\, n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis,
p. pr. of scire to know. Cf. {Conscience}, {Conscious},
{Nice}.]
1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained
truth of facts.
[1913 Webster]
2. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical
world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and
forces of matter, the qualities and functions of living
tissues, etc.; -- called also {natural science}, and
{physical science}.
[1913 Webster]
3. Art, skill, or expertness, regarded as the result of
knowledge of laws and principles.
[1913 Webster]
Believe what you will, but science is something specific and well defined. Nobody should question your right to believe in Intelligent Design, because the freedom of belief and worship is a basic human right. Intelligent Design, however, is not by any strech "science" and thus should be left out of science class.
Ever tried cutting a perfect [circle] (well, as close to perfect as you can get) with a manual machine?
Yup. It's easy if you use the right tool. In the case of a circle, you want a lathe, or a fourth axis in the form of a turntable.
For complex curves though, you're right. CNC is the way to go unless you have some specialty machine. Personally, I've always wanted an eliptical lathe. I'm not sure what I'd use it for; probably only one or two odd jobs over the course of the next few decades. But they're cool, thus I want one.
Existance of physical evidence isn't self incrimination. And encryption key, by itself, isn't incriminating. There is no reason you couldn't subpoena an encryption key, and there's no reason encryption keys should be treated any differently than the key to your file cabinet in a criminal investigation.
Not only that, but you'd damned well better hope that when they finally crack your encryption after you refuse to give the key that there's only evidence of your own wrong doing on your hard drive, because you're allowed to shut up and not incriminate yourself, but if you witheld access to data that implicates a third party, you've just gone from trying to excercize your fifth amendment right to obstruction of justice.
Also, activating your copy of Windows doesn't require any phone call to Microsoft.
Re-activating it, like many people had to do when SP2 de-activated their copy, does.
Furthermore, at my work we have over 10,000 Windows XP boxes and have never run into any problems especially problems activating Windows XP...
That's because corporate editions don't require activation.
Frankly, most of the people who have problems with Windows XP are simply idiots who run anything and everything they can get their hands on despite the source.
XP is really reliable when compared to past versions of Windows. That still didn't make the transition from SP1 to SP2 any easier. A very high percentage of people with non-OEM machines had trouble. (And they still haven't gotten hibernation to work right. I'd say it's unreliable on about 1 in 10 machines.)
If you can't see the similarities in these situations you're either very dumb or so much of a fan boy that you're ignoring common sense.
I know it's not the same. It was an ironic comment. However, the chances are pretty damned good that upgrading hardware or installing a service pack will "de-activate" your copy of Windows requiring a phone call to Microsoft. Sure, it's not as bad as having to wait for a crack, but it's fair game to point out the the average user isn't used to their system being a pillar of stability; especially when pointing out that the end user is way more tolerant than the parent thinks.
the number of people who are willing to run a machine that has a good chance of not booting the next time you install a software update is fairly small
But I don't hesitate to point out that it offered not only fighting, but crafting, economics, politics, dancing, music, and role playing.
Offering those things doesn't change the fact that combat is the focus. In practically every one of these games the items, skill points, money, etc... all originate as spoils of combat. Sure there are exceptions, but they're just that. Exceptions.
I think that you've made a rediculous statement given that this article is about how they're just finishing up revitializing combat in SWG. If it didn't have a combat focus before, well guess what. It does now. Or at least they want it to.
I agree and understand that is a good reason for combat to be a popular topic for games, rather than an everyday real-life activity. Popularity is one thing. It doesn't explain why it's practically the only thing that MMORPGs focus on though. There are plenty of activities that are beyond the capabilities of most people in real life, have concequences too great to practice in a non-virtual setting, or involve levels of technology or fantasy so great as to be impossible in real life... Yet the video games on the shelf at your local game store focus on combat almost exclusively.
Exactly, so you know what we have to do to beat Sony... release it even earlier,
I see somebody has already bought into the hype...
What makes you think that the reason Microsoft is shipping Xbox 360 now, so early after the release of Xbox is to beat Sony to market? It seems to me that they're doing it more because they're bleeding cash every time an Xbox gets sold; more cash now than when they first came out, since the cost of obsolete parts from all their third party vendors has gone up while the competition's costs for their homemade parts have gone down. They need to move to the 360 as soon as possible so they start making a profit. If the 360 wasn't shipping this month, I'd bet Sony would have waited even longer before coming out with the PS3, because there is still profit to be made on the PS2, and the longer they wait, the more return on their investment they get.
Incidentally, I bet the intel processors in the most recent of Xbox consoles are some of the most overclockable x86 compatable chips ever.
Ok, this is off topic, but I've got to know... What's the point of your comment? Why did you feel you needed to say this? Essentially you're saying "You know, you're right, but let me spin it so it can kinda, sorta, be a dig at Sony".
Slashdot Mirror
When they illegally destroyed Netscape (and Netscape put out Communicator 4.8) that was a criminal offense. Was it one when the market share was 50/50?
Yes, because it was the Windows market share that mattered, not their market share in the browser sector. But the Netscape case is a bad example anyway, because it's way too complex. Good arguments could be made for why Microsoft wasn't guilty there too, and they were essentially convicted based on a technicality (bundling).
If Sony is also selling boxes at a loss to maintain a market edge, is that not also a monopoly and an illegal practice?
No, because Sony doesn't have a monopoly. They make a profit anyway, so it's a silly question.
Why? [...] But right now they're far from a monopoly [...] even though it's bankrolled by the monopoly that is Windows
You almost answered your own question. Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Using your monopoly in another sector to force out the competition, thus granting yourself a new monopoly with a different product is. If it weren't, new businesses wouldn't stand a chance, and eventually we'd just end up with one big company that had a monopoly on everything.
Why do you think the 360 is coming out *now* and not in a year or two?
Hint: It's not to beat Sony out the door, because Sony wouldn't be releasing the PS3 nearly as soon if not to keep up with Microsoft.
The Xbox 360 is designed to be inexpensive to build and sell at a profit. Even Microsoft can't afford to lose billions of dollars, especially now that they have to pay out their stash of cash as dividends. So they have to get the newer, profitable version out right away. That's also the only explination for why they deviated from the otherwise excelent architecture of the first Xbox too. Xbox was well designed - everything a PC should be - and there was no reason Xbox 2 couldn't have been the same thing with a faster processor, faster GPU, and faster memory... But you need to make a profit!
THere may be a very good reason.... Their secretary can't type very well, and it's hard to proofread something you know nothing about.
Oh how wrong you are.
They're turning alright... Just in the other direction. This is the first step towards requiring payment for timeshifting. Want to record that show to your DVR or VCR? You have to pay. This is the beginning of the networks trying to get people back in their seats watching only one show in any particular prime time slot so their current ratings and advertisment rate paridigm will continue to work. You're *not* the customer, you're the product, and your eyes are being sold to the advertizers.
Honestly, I have no idea how the cable industry can explain how this business model will work now that PVRs are becoming popular.
Get broadcast flag legislation passed, then disallow PVRs to record unless you fork over $1.
Oh, well we've got this PHP worm... Why don't we call it a Linux worm and the press will just eat it up!
How much did they pay you for this guerilla marketing?
Ads in slashdot comments... What's next? Ads in the stories?
Science may be lots of things, but it is neither "specific" nor "well-defined."
You're confusing science - (the field and practice) - with "science" - (the term sometimes used to describe any research, junk or otherwise). Just because something ends with an uncertain conclusion doesn't mean it's not specific.
ID is excluded by the definitions above because there are no ascertained principles or causes, and it doesn't describe any particular skill or technique.
Summary: Not knowledge based on the observations of cause and effect, but instead a belief founded in faith and hearsay. Not a technique to obtain said knowledge. Hence, not science.
This is especially true when the newest console is only $300.
:)
It's especially untrue if you already need a moderatly high performance PC for other things already. If you're going to have the monitor, and the CPU, and the memory already, buying a $250 video card for gaming is $50 cheaper than a $300 console.
Like I'm one to talk though... I buy the consoles, and the video card.
You get used to it
I didn't.
I had to go to the TiVo website and buy a regular TiVo remote.
It's worth it.
but if I lived in a "dark blue" state where there was a good rail line and inadequite parking
Where is this mythical place? I live in a "dark blue" state (Massachusetts) that has poor parking, poor roads, but poor public transit to go right along with it. And it wouldn't really matter if there was better public transit, because all those good little greenie blue-state parents would still flip the bird at the environment when it comes to their children and buy disposible everything and make the school bus stop at the bottom of every single driveway. From what I've seen, all the other "dark blue" states are the same way.
I'm almost with you on the excercising part though, except my gym has 4" screens mounted to every treadmill and eliptical already, and they're still too small to enjoy when your body is moving. Maybe they'd be OK on an exercise bike? Still, mobile video screams "niche".
Multiple Designers: Why are there so many different designs for the eye and what does that say about the designer(s)? Why does the human eye lack important innovations such as the reflective layer in the cat's eye that improves night vision or the more logical retina-over-blood network of the octopus eye or the four-color vision of the jumping spider eye (or the 6-color vision of the mantis shrimp) or the polarization sensitivity used by bees and ants for navigation? One strong hypothesis is that multiple designers participated -- different designers, working independently, created these different designs. Perhaps the joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee is really true.
Bible literalists should have no trouble believing this. The Bible, and the commandments do not say that there are no other gods. It says that God is the creator of man, and the you shouldn't worship any other gods. It is only through interpretation that this is taken to mean that God is the only god; but literalists don't interpret. Genesis doesn't say anywhere that no other creators ever came along and added to God's creation. There was no octopus, spider, bee, or ant on Noah's ark... Again, this is only implied. But the bible is meant to be taken purely at face value, right?
Of course it's silly to talk like that, because literalists are only literalists about the parts they like.
Science \Sci"ence\, n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis,
p. pr. of scire to know. Cf. {Conscience}, {Conscious},
{Nice}.]
1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained
truth of facts.
[1913 Webster]
2. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical
world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and
forces of matter, the qualities and functions of living
tissues, etc.; -- called also {natural science}, and
{physical science}.
[1913 Webster]
3. Art, skill, or expertness, regarded as the result of
knowledge of laws and principles.
[1913 Webster]
Believe what you will, but science is something specific and well defined. Nobody should question your right to believe in Intelligent Design, because the freedom of belief and worship is a basic human right. Intelligent Design, however, is not by any strech "science" and thus should be left out of science class.
Ever tried cutting a perfect [circle] (well, as close to perfect as you can get) with a manual machine?
Yup. It's easy if you use the right tool. In the case of a circle, you want a lathe, or a fourth axis in the form of a turntable.
For complex curves though, you're right. CNC is the way to go unless you have some specialty machine. Personally, I've always wanted an eliptical lathe. I'm not sure what I'd use it for; probably only one or two odd jobs over the course of the next few decades. But they're cool, thus I want one.
Existance of physical evidence isn't self incrimination. And encryption key, by itself, isn't incriminating. There is no reason you couldn't subpoena an encryption key, and there's no reason encryption keys should be treated any differently than the key to your file cabinet in a criminal investigation.
Not only that, but you'd damned well better hope that when they finally crack your encryption after you refuse to give the key that there's only evidence of your own wrong doing on your hard drive, because you're allowed to shut up and not incriminate yourself, but if you witheld access to data that implicates a third party, you've just gone from trying to excercize your fifth amendment right to obstruction of justice.
Also, activating your copy of Windows doesn't require any phone call to Microsoft.
Re-activating it, like many people had to do when SP2 de-activated their copy, does.
Furthermore, at my work we have over 10,000 Windows XP boxes and have never run into any problems especially problems activating Windows XP...
That's because corporate editions don't require activation.
Frankly, most of the people who have problems with Windows XP are simply idiots who run anything and everything they can get their hands on despite the source.
XP is really reliable when compared to past versions of Windows. That still didn't make the transition from SP1 to SP2 any easier. A very high percentage of people with non-OEM machines had trouble. (And they still haven't gotten hibernation to work right. I'd say it's unreliable on about 1 in 10 machines.)
If you can't see the similarities in these situations you're either very dumb or so much of a fan boy that you're ignoring common sense.
I know it's not the same. It was an ironic comment. However, the chances are pretty damned good that upgrading hardware or installing a service pack will "de-activate" your copy of Windows requiring a phone call to Microsoft. Sure, it's not as bad as having to wait for a crack, but it's fair game to point out the the average user isn't used to their system being a pillar of stability; especially when pointing out that the end user is way more tolerant than the parent thinks.
the number of people who are willing to run a machine that has a good chance of not booting the next time you install a software update is fairly small
Yeah, it's only 90% of the market.
But I don't hesitate to point out that it offered not only fighting, but crafting, economics, politics, dancing, music, and role playing.
Offering those things doesn't change the fact that combat is the focus. In practically every one of these games the items, skill points, money, etc... all originate as spoils of combat. Sure there are exceptions, but they're just that. Exceptions.
Well, it is called Star Wars. What would you expect a MMO game based on Star Wars to be like?
There are many more MMORPGs out there than SWG. What's the excuse for those?
I think that you've made a rediculous statement given that this article is about how they're just finishing up revitializing combat in SWG. If it didn't have a combat focus before, well guess what. It does now. Or at least they want it to.
I agree and understand that is a good reason for combat to be a popular topic for games, rather than an everyday real-life activity. Popularity is one thing. It doesn't explain why it's practically the only thing that MMORPGs focus on though. There are plenty of activities that are beyond the capabilities of most people in real life, have concequences too great to practice in a non-virtual setting, or involve levels of technology or fantasy so great as to be impossible in real life... Yet the video games on the shelf at your local game store focus on combat almost exclusively.
Exactly, so you know what we have to do to beat Sony... release it even earlier,
I see somebody has already bought into the hype...
What makes you think that the reason Microsoft is shipping Xbox 360 now, so early after the release of Xbox is to beat Sony to market? It seems to me that they're doing it more because they're bleeding cash every time an Xbox gets sold; more cash now than when they first came out, since the cost of obsolete parts from all their third party vendors has gone up while the competition's costs for their homemade parts have gone down. They need to move to the 360 as soon as possible so they start making a profit. If the 360 wasn't shipping this month, I'd bet Sony would have waited even longer before coming out with the PS3, because there is still profit to be made on the PS2, and the longer they wait, the more return on their investment they get.
Incidentally, I bet the intel processors in the most recent of Xbox consoles are some of the most overclockable x86 compatable chips ever.
Ok, this is off topic, but I've got to know... What's the point of your comment? Why did you feel you needed to say this? Essentially you're saying "You know, you're right, but let me spin it so it can kinda, sorta, be a dig at Sony".