The iPad is pricey, pre-licked candy. Until someone else opens a sweetshop and starts selling their own candy, the only way you're getting any is with Steve Job's drool over it. Bring on the rivals, I say.
Looking at the moderation for this insightful post, I see its 4 up insightful and 1 down flaimbait (Slashdot lacking in 'fanboy' downwards moderation) Someone really should analyse the moderation of 1000 similar posts to find out the fanboy percentage at Slashdot so that we can build in a script that automatically filters out the moderating discrepancy.
And for the record, I am not a Dell fanboy, but we buy almost exclusively Dell where I work and their business tech support is top notch. I talk to real live Americans every time I call, and they never hassle me about anything.
And now allow me to quote from the wiki page about Dell.
In May 2008, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dell and Dell Financial Services "engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices". The relevant lawsuit aimed primarily to highlight and seek restitution for a lack of technical support given to customers by Dell. The court plans to hold further proceedings to determine how much money Dell has to pay out to customers and how much profit Dell made unlawfully, in New York.
In light of the worrying news article and evidence that the company itself is involved all these dubious practices and not just their outsourced staff, it makes me wonder how many other things like this have happened that we have not heard about, perhaps partly keeping quiet in fear of being mocked all over the web by Dell fanboys.
In no way is this a typical case. This is a company that adverstises its 'pride in customer support' when after a year of complaints, Dell has even to respond to the victim. Though I am surprised to see so many Dell fanboys (Dellboys?) queueing up to mock a typical computer user who has at most basic computer skills. Lets face it only people with basic computer skills would probably even buy a Dell to begin with.
It would be like trying to reverse the $1,000.00 charges for the champagne room strippers because they were ugly.
To put it into a bit more accurate a context, it is a little bit more than strippers being ugly. They would have to convince you they were strippers, then show up after being paid with a lot of clothes on and put even more clothes on. It's false advertising and a scam, don't try using irrelevant metaphors to back them up like I have just done to disagree. Dammit I'm such a hypocrite.
Isn't passing personal information out for Europe without expressed permission a breach of the Data Protection Act? Though lets face it, peoples biggest privacy concerns here are their porn viewing habits. Perhaps some porn sites should set up shop that show up in the URL history as stocks and shares or Technology News.
Fanboys aside, I have an Android and my partner has an iPhone and have had a good chance for a play around with both, they are amazing gadgets but in all honesty both are fairly shit as actual phones.
Slightly off topic I know but I found it interesting enough to share
Some Scottish hippy friend of mine alleged her charity group managed to fight the good fight against patent trolls by applying for their own patent. Back in 1997 some Texan asshats applied for a patent on basmati rice. Of course this is bio-piracy and as insane as it sounds, the patent was actually granted. Clearly the patent system was as bent as a butchers hook (it still is?). Needless to say this would have destroyed countless livelihoods in India and probably left a lot of people to starve to death. In order to raise awareness for this problem and to put huge pressure on the American government to stop allegedly taking backhanders and burying the problem under red tape the hippy group applied for a patent themselves. They decided that seen as people enjoy eating chips (British chips = french fries in the USA) they decided to apply for a patent on a way of eating chips they had invented, and that is of eating chips with salt. They proved it perfectly legal under existing US patent laws and caused enough of a shitstorm to get the press involved and damage the bureaucrats PR until the patent was un-granted.
I cannot vouch for the truth of this tale she told me but I looked it up and found some pages backing up her claims.
Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.
Spore was pretty amazing in what it attempted and to a degree what it accomplished. For a very creatively restrictive company like EA (who much rather churn out formulaic sequels from existing franchises) it was in some ways pretty ground breaking. What amazed me most about the game is it had my girlfriend and probably countless other casual gamers playing a real time strategy and later a basic space trader. Proving that if the marketing and presentation are done right, you might be able to break casual players into more hardcore game themes.
Oh noes the child porn card! If your going down that road why not push for a ban on blank DVD's, digital cameras, haribo sweeties and internet chat rooms, all of which can and no doubt are used in some way for child exploitation and child porn production.
There's a difference between trying to profit and exploiting peoples naivety to mine and sell personal information. Nothing in life is free, especially not facebook. Its already reached the stage where undisclosed changes in privacy settings have left many job interviewers with photographic detail of peoples private lives. Of course people hate them but its too late for that, especially among teenagers when all their friends use it, there is no choice for them if they want to maintain a social presence.
But if I just wanted to surf, write emails and do some light word-processing, I have to say Windows 7 would be fine for me..
Interesting enough for me, I am the opposite of this. I use Ubuntu in fact for exactly purposes.
I am a new user to linux though I still mostly use windows 7, largely because I already know how things work. I have recently set up a dual boot Ubuntu and use it when I can to try and teach myself some linux. The biggest problem I stumbled over using Ubuntu was that a lot of things just didn't work right away. Getting my graphics card drivers to install and actually work in 3d took me a long time and a lot of frustration and googling up for help often left me with seemingly needlessly complicated instructions telling me to copy paste scary looking things into a terminal and replace this part with whatever was relevant to my system. Where as in windows 7 if I hit an error or problem and google it, I end up usually with a brainless step by step guide with screenshots of every stage, sure I don't really learn anything from those but it gets the job done without investing lots of time.
What I'm trying to say is that the support for the idiot level user just was not there for me and any online help seemed to require existing levels of competence. Previous failed attempts at getting Ubuntu working left me feeling that I was neither tech savvie or intelligent enough to use it, placing it on a shelf slightly out of reach.
- my only serious objection is the inability to re-sell games -
Then create a new steam account for each game you buy then sell the steam account containing a game. Alternatively you could try making your own games and selling those instead.
There is only one real solution that I know of, assuming that global warming is in fact being significantly catalysed by mankind's activities and so far from what I personally have seen its mostly only comedians who have the stones to propose the idea, probably as it would be political suicide for anyone in office.
Frankie Boyle said "Of course, anyone who is aware of the environment knows that they should be re-using their plastic carrier bags....to suffocate their children"
Billy Connolly said the solution was "Cannibalism. Look at this way: if we all ate one person, the problem would be halved over-night. Think about it: I could eat someone you don't like, you could eat someone I don't like... where's the fucking damage?"
Tastelss jokes aside, of course the heart of the problem is surely over population and any other solutions are at best temporary fixes until the population swells even more. Solutions to problems created by overpopulation such as shortages of food and water only help to swell the population. I will surely be burned for saying this but feeding people who cannot feed themselves ultimately creates even more people who cannot feed themselves.
Apparently it was very popular in Germany and Eastern Europe for some reason unknown to me . I personally think the execution was a bit of a let down compared to the awesome premise, cyberpunk, Mad Max pirates.
The biggest problem with people who deny the massive amounts of evidence pointing towards a significant human effect on global warming tend to be those who are financially benefiting from the alleged destruction of our environment.
Out of 3,146 scientists surveyed as to if they believed human activity to be of significant contribution to the increase in global temperatures since the 1800's, 82 percent said they did. Interestingly out of the petroleum geologists asked in this survey (who's job is oil exploration) only 47 percent believed.
Yes the majority of players are mostly interested in the offline single player gameplay, unfortunately for the offline campaign you have to buy the game three times to experience it.
True I was thinking of single player but should have mentioned that fact in my post. There are endless, plotless fps multiplayer games though TF2 certainly scores high on the graphics and branding.
Yes but standards change, the punters keep demanding more and these days a FPS game with no story, just violence and the occasional puzzle would likely be panned by critics and economically flop.
Problem with the games market is that graphics and branding are ultimately what sells games and until the audience can become more sophisticated, the vast majority games never will.
Slashdot Mirror
The iPad is pricey, pre-licked candy. Until someone else opens a sweetshop and starts selling their own candy, the only way you're getting any is with Steve Job's drool over it. Bring on the rivals, I say.
Looking at the moderation for this insightful post, I see its 4 up insightful and 1 down flaimbait (Slashdot lacking in 'fanboy' downwards moderation) Someone really should analyse the moderation of 1000 similar posts to find out the fanboy percentage at Slashdot so that we can build in a script that automatically filters out the moderating discrepancy.
And for the record, I am not a Dell fanboy, but we buy almost exclusively Dell where I work and their business tech support is top notch. I talk to real live Americans every time I call, and they never hassle me about anything.
And now allow me to quote from the wiki page about Dell.
In May 2008, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dell and Dell Financial Services "engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices". The relevant lawsuit aimed primarily to highlight and seek restitution for a lack of technical support given to customers by Dell. The court plans to hold further proceedings to determine how much money Dell has to pay out to customers and how much profit Dell made unlawfully, in New York.
In light of the worrying news article and evidence that the company itself is involved all these dubious practices and not just their outsourced staff, it makes me wonder how many other things like this have happened that we have not heard about, perhaps partly keeping quiet in fear of being mocked all over the web by Dell fanboys.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Rather off topic, but I wish I could mod up your signature.
In no way is this a typical case. This is a company that adverstises its 'pride in customer support' when after a year of complaints, Dell has even to respond to the victim.
Though I am surprised to see so many Dell fanboys (Dellboys?) queueing up to mock a typical computer user who has at most basic computer skills. Lets face it only people with basic computer skills would probably even buy a Dell to begin with.
A Grandmother discovered a secret way of getting Nintendo games to work using this one wierd tip....... buy them!
It would be like trying to reverse the $1,000.00 charges for the champagne room strippers because they were ugly.
To put it into a bit more accurate a context, it is a little bit more than strippers being ugly. They would have to convince you they were strippers, then show up after being paid with a lot of clothes on and put even more clothes on. It's false advertising and a scam, don't try using irrelevant metaphors to back them up like I have just done to disagree. Dammit I'm such a hypocrite.
Funny how, unlike on the Monopoly Community Chest cards, bank errors never appear to be 'in your favour'.
Isn't passing personal information out for Europe without expressed permission a breach of the Data Protection Act? Though lets face it, peoples biggest privacy concerns here are their porn viewing habits. Perhaps some porn sites should set up shop that show up in the URL history as stocks and shares or Technology News.
Anna.Techsupport032a2.jpg, Anna.Techsupport032a3.jpg
Fanboys aside, I have an Android and my partner has an iPhone and have had a good chance for a play around with both, they are amazing gadgets but in all honesty both are fairly shit as actual phones.
They're more of a laboratory curiosity than anything that would fool anybody.
Yes but it is early days. Technology always starts out a bit crap, I mean your PC sure has come a long way from valves and punch cards.
Some Scottish hippy friend of mine alleged her charity group managed to fight the good fight against patent trolls by applying for their own patent. Back in 1997 some Texan asshats applied for a patent on basmati rice. Of course this is bio-piracy and as insane as it sounds, the patent was actually granted. Clearly the patent system was as bent as a butchers hook (it still is?). Needless to say this would have destroyed countless livelihoods in India and probably left a lot of people to starve to death. In order to raise awareness for this problem and to put huge pressure on the American government to stop allegedly taking backhanders and burying the problem under red tape the hippy group applied for a patent themselves. They decided that seen as people enjoy eating chips (British chips = french fries in the USA) they decided to apply for a patent on a way of eating chips they had invented, and that is of eating chips with salt. They proved it perfectly legal under existing US patent laws and caused enough of a shitstorm to get the press involved and damage the bureaucrats PR until the patent was un-granted.
I cannot vouch for the truth of this tale she told me but I looked it up and found some pages backing up her claims.
http://www.purefood.org/patent/frenchfries032602.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmati
Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.
Spore was pretty amazing in what it attempted and to a degree what it accomplished. For a very creatively restrictive company like EA (who much rather churn out formulaic sequels from existing franchises) it was in some ways pretty ground breaking. What amazed me most about the game is it had my girlfriend and probably countless other casual gamers playing a real time strategy and later a basic space trader. Proving that if the marketing and presentation are done right, you might be able to break casual players into more hardcore game themes.
Anyone else wondering if they have done extensive testing on what happens when they shine that sucker on people?
Oh noes the child porn card! If your going down that road why not push for a ban on blank DVD's, digital cameras, haribo sweeties and internet chat rooms, all of which can and no doubt are used in some way for child exploitation and child porn production.
Sounds awesome, can't wait to sign up.
There's a difference between trying to profit and exploiting peoples naivety to mine and sell personal information. Nothing in life is free, especially not facebook. Its already reached the stage where undisclosed changes in privacy settings have left many job interviewers with photographic detail of peoples private lives. Of course people hate them but its too late for that, especially among teenagers when all their friends use it, there is no choice for them if they want to maintain a social presence.
But if I just wanted to surf, write emails and do some light word-processing, I have to say Windows 7 would be fine for me. .
Interesting enough for me, I am the opposite of this. I use Ubuntu in fact for exactly purposes.
I am a new user to linux though I still mostly use windows 7, largely because I already know how things work. I have recently set up a dual boot Ubuntu and use it when I can to try and teach myself some linux. The biggest problem I stumbled over using Ubuntu was that a lot of things just didn't work right away. Getting my graphics card drivers to install and actually work in 3d took me a long time and a lot of frustration and googling up for help often left me with seemingly needlessly complicated instructions telling me to copy paste scary looking things into a terminal and replace this part with whatever was relevant to my system. Where as in windows 7 if I hit an error or problem and google it, I end up usually with a brainless step by step guide with screenshots of every stage, sure I don't really learn anything from those but it gets the job done without investing lots of time.
What I'm trying to say is that the support for the idiot level user just was not there for me and any online help seemed to require existing levels of competence. Previous failed attempts at getting Ubuntu working left me feeling that I was neither tech savvie or intelligent enough to use it, placing it on a shelf slightly out of reach.
- my only serious objection is the inability to re-sell games -
Then create a new steam account for each game you buy then sell the steam account containing a game. Alternatively you could try making your own games and selling those instead.
Frankie Boyle said "Of course, anyone who is aware of the environment knows that they should be re-using their plastic carrier bags....to suffocate their children"
Billy Connolly said the solution was "Cannibalism. Look at this way: if we all ate one person, the problem would be halved over-night. Think about it: I could eat someone you don't like, you could eat someone I don't like... where's the fucking damage?"
Tastelss jokes aside, of course the heart of the problem is surely over population and any other solutions are at best temporary fixes until the population swells even more. Solutions to problems created by overpopulation such as shortages of food and water only help to swell the population. I will surely be burned for saying this but feeding people who cannot feed themselves ultimately creates even more people who cannot feed themselves.
Apparently it was very popular in Germany and Eastern Europe for some reason unknown to me . I personally think the execution was a bit of a let down compared to the awesome premise, cyberpunk, Mad Max pirates.
The biggest problem with people who deny the massive amounts of evidence pointing towards a significant human effect on global warming tend to be those who are financially benefiting from the alleged destruction of our environment .
Out of 3,146 scientists surveyed as to if they believed human activity to be of significant contribution to the increase in global temperatures since the 1800's, 82 percent said they did. Interestingly out of the petroleum geologists asked in this survey (who's job is oil exploration) only 47 percent believed.
(source:http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html)
Yes the majority of players are mostly interested in the offline single player gameplay, unfortunately for the offline campaign you have to buy the game three times to experience it.
True I was thinking of single player but should have mentioned that fact in my post. There are endless, plotless fps multiplayer games though TF2 certainly scores high on the graphics and branding.
Problem with the games market is that graphics and branding are ultimately what sells games and until the audience can become more sophisticated, the vast majority games never will.