This is now the second generation of consoles where gaming companies have talked about convergence. The idea being that your gaming console will be the platform for your news, weather, web surfing and entertainment - all in one little box with their brand on it.
Isn't it funny how the cheapest console on the market, branded generation 1.5 by many, comes the closest to getting it right?
It's not about what they're smoking or not smoking. Clearly, they failed to drink their Cupertino Nectars Apple Juice....
Seriously?
One of two things happened: either one of the core developers has a Sharp Zaurus, or they see it as a more economically viable platform to develop for than OS X.
Baseball truly does need a salary cap to keep things competitive. I live in Milwaukee, where we recognize that the Brewers are essentially an expensive minor-league team, and so we never expect another season like the pennant run in 1984. If you're expecting a good won/lost figure, the smaller-market teams will never have it. And, if they ever get close, their rosters will be torn apart by actual big-league teams throwing money at their players.
And of course, the idea that a professional sports franchise somehow deserves locally-generated welfare is stupid. Just tax each MLB millionaire half his salary for each building project. I bet those overpaid nancy-boys will find they can actually play ball in a stadium more than 10 years old.
However, the cost of a ticket isn't what keeps people out of baseball. Checking the A's website, I find that I can purchase an advance ticket for $10, and fairly nice seats for $30.
Tickets for the Raiders start at $26 for a small zone up high. And, for decent seats (comparable to the $30 for Baseball) you're looking at $61. And you admit yourself that most of the people going to games are from out-of-town.
The problem isn't cost, it's being able to believe that the show is worth seeing.
As someone who does work in the systems of a top-10 US card issuer, I can tell you we lose over 3 million USD to fraud every MONTH. And the company I work for is nowhere close to being the biggest! (The top couple of banks are separated by a decimal place worth of volume from the rest)
As most of you probably know, banks make money by earning a small amount of money on each of a lot of transactions. $3 million worth of loss takes a LOT of transactions.
Every time some fraud scheme comes up on Slashdot, everyone bitches that the banks don't do enough. Do you really, truly think that banks aren't interested in plugging a $3 million/month leak?
The problem is that, a lot like hackers vs. DRM - or spammers vs. every geek on Earth - the people looking to break the system are always one step ahead.
Phishing will die off on the same day we geeks manage to stop the last spammer. They have similar tactics, and do at some points overlap. And, since we are much better equipped than banks to fight that battle, and we have yet to win, you can assume that day is far off.
Remember, banks are in the business of making transactions, not software. Keep in mind what you're asking them to be good at is in no way how they make money. Find/invent a solution yourself and sell it to them. I guarantee they'll be interested, so long as your answer costs less than $3 million USD/year.
I'll tell you what. You pick a date for the end of hostilities.
You see, as everyone knows, we're currently training the Iraqi Army, and working with it. Your implication that, somehow, we're still at war with the nation of Iraq because their Army never signed a paper is not only moronic, but an outright lie.
But maybe Wikipedia (article on Operation Iraqi Freedom) will grant you your wish for someone other than Bush to declare things at an end: "US forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on April 9, 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by US forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended........General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Ba'ath party itself to stand down."
Quite honestly, if you're looking for a general or for Saddam to sign something, they all ran with their tails between their legs. It was over, and everyone but a coward like yourself knew it.
You're seriously going to quote Slate to me? Why don't you just say, "WAAAAaaaa", and get it over with? The Internet is terribly bad at covering real history, so why don't you just go to the Library and look up some articles published on the situation in Germany in 1947. I love how you liberal jag-offs accuse decent people of the crap you're up to...I can see Howard Dean's arm coming out your ass. "WAAAaaaaaa"
And, of course, if you want a doctored photo, why don't you take your sad-sack self and go to Reuters?
Opening of hot war against Iraq: March 19, 2003. Ending of hot war against Iraq: May 1, 2003. Total duration of war against Iraq (known as Operation Iraqi Freedom): 13 days. My history is a bit shaky at points, but I believe WWII was significantly longer than 13 days.
Occupation of Iraq begins: May 2, 2003 Operation of US troops in Iraqi borders continues to this day. Current duration of Iraq occupation: roughly 3 years, 18 weeks.
Occupation of Germany begins: May 8, 1945 Occupation of Germany by US forces continues to this day. Current duration of German occupation: roughly 66 years, 17 weeks.
Maybe you should review both the current situation in Iraq, and the reality of postwar Germany. See also "Werewolf".
Once you put someone - anyone - beyond all ability to be ridiculed, you put their life and opinions above the realm where people may discuss it as one of their own.
We human beings make fun of our own. We human beings kid around, tease, and poke at each other. Did you see the American show, "Last Comic Standing"? Josh Blue, a comic on there, had a solid case of cerebal palsy, as evidenced by his constant, jerky motion.
You know why he won?
The guy could laugh at himself. He could laugh at us laughing at him. He could laugh at stereotypes. He could laugh.
Maybe you could learn something about yourself from Josh.
Nothing in this thread so far - my earlier jest included - is so spiteful and cruel that even Steven himself couldn't get a chuckle from it.
Maybe the problem is that some people in this world take themselves and their conditions too damn seriously.
Why is it that the same people who want to embrace the wholesale slaughter of embryos to drive stem cell research - which is genetically engineering drugs - get up in arms about GE food?
Seems to me that these folks just value their dinner more than their humanity
If you're actually willing to fork over your money to EA for the next Madden update - which EA has freely admitted will be released for the console with known, significant bugs - then I don't see why you should propose to be concerned with the quality of the experience.
Just buy yourself a nice LCD - you'll probably never have the game running long enough to see the trails.
Of course, if you couple your XBOX360 (which I do intend to buy when we get to hardware v2) with a plasma TV, you'll save a ton on your heating bills this winter.:-)
No one gets to start off with a modern industrial complex and a space program. You start out with a few poor villagers. Then, those villagers work at building up a Civilization, stopping at points which involve a fair amount of labor.
There was a time when the USA was also a dumping ground for cheap labor. Our grandparents through great-great-grandparents worked very hard at dirty jobs for long hours.
Then someone got the "Organized Labor", "Industrial Revolution", "Clean Air Act" upgrades. Those laid the groundwork for the "40-hr Work Week", "Military-Industrial Complex" and "Civic Green Space" upgrades. That, in turn, unlocked "Space Program", which allowed us to advance our Civilization to the Information Age.
The US has managed to do a pretty good job assembling a Rush strategy to catch up to civs that got a headstart on us.
China is turtling right now....give it time, it'll get its upgrades.
Speaking of taking drugs, you do realize who built the Internet, right?
It was the same Big Government(TM) that you seem to despise. They even went and involved that darn Military-Industrial complex! And Ma Bell's remnants! Hey, that's a monopoly!
You have to realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Fiber does not lay itself. Routers do not monitor themselves. Servers - of any OS - require regular maintenance and TLC.
Who will provide it for free? Some anonymous coward?
I think not.
Realize that your communications will always, always be monitored because YOU and I did not create the comm path.
Once upon a time, this nation was comitted to putting the best and the brightest forward, and creating the most we could with the technology available to us at the time.
Sadly, those days are behind us."
You only believe this because you're young enough to have no living memory of those other projects.
All projects have limitations and compromises - either due to limited knowledge or limited resources. Every material we have is finite - even genius.
You only believe the current stuff is somehow different because you're buying the propaganda of historians.
I have to believe the reason the creators of Winternals cashed in is that the uncovering of massive, unlicensed use at Geek Squad demonstrated that Winternals was just enabling hacks to charge way, way too much for supporting PCs.
I know if I had a tool of mine abused in that way, I'd look to get out of the business. This sounds like as good a way to do that as any.
I don't believe that from the decidedly pro-public-school stance you take, or the insulting tone you take about the relationship between a child and its parents.
No, I can tell you're a teacher because your punctuation and capitalization are atrocious, because your argument consists of a string of sentence fragments and run-on sentences, and because your entire post has the distinct air of an idiot who was given a shiny button and told he can use it to bend small children to his will.
And, because at the end of the post I describe above, you dare to lament the "lack of arts, music and p.e.". And you make this lament as though the reason we need to focus on basics in the modern school wasn't made disgustingly obvious by your preceding butchering of the English language.
And to forestall the comments, I learned how to write English by learning from my parents, by studying German, and by reading the works of professional writers. Public school teachers had precious little to do with it.
"endless series of skirmishes without any clear goals or much way to define "winning" or "losing", and I can see how that could easily be boring or frustrating to play."
Doesn't this pretty much define every pubbie server for every FPS ever made?
There's something in the European attitude today that makes them think that they can control the world by passing laws and making "judgements". It probably stems from having failed to gain complete world domination through 500 years of inflicting their rule on any country they could sail to.
The Geneva Conventions forbid a country from being subject to any law or treaty it has not passed. Therefore, the UK has begun an illegal court procedure against a Russian firm. We should protest and break shop windows!
Slashdot Mirror
This is now the second generation of consoles where gaming companies have talked about convergence. The idea being that your gaming console will be the platform for your news, weather, web surfing and entertainment - all in one little box with their brand on it.
Isn't it funny how the cheapest console on the market, branded generation 1.5 by many, comes the closest to getting it right?
This can't possibly be true.
OS X is inherently secure. There is no possible way 31 separate security holes could exist; Darth Jobs saw to it personally.
It's not about what they're smoking or not smoking. Clearly, they failed to drink their Cupertino Nectars Apple Juice....
Seriously?
One of two things happened: either one of the core developers has a Sharp Zaurus, or they see it as a more economically viable platform to develop for than OS X.
What the government is probably trying to do here is gather any data the airline captures and see if there are any trends.
After some time, there may be a trend that terrorists always get the $5 snack pack with orange soda. Hey, you don't know.
You forgot it takes a healthy dose of Neutrinos to make the tubes fully form.
You come close, but then veer so far off.
Baseball truly does need a salary cap to keep things competitive. I live in Milwaukee, where we recognize that the Brewers are essentially an expensive minor-league team, and so we never expect another season like the pennant run in 1984. If you're expecting a good won/lost figure, the smaller-market teams will never have it. And, if they ever get close, their rosters will be torn apart by actual big-league teams throwing money at their players.
And of course, the idea that a professional sports franchise somehow deserves locally-generated welfare is stupid. Just tax each MLB millionaire half his salary for each building project. I bet those overpaid nancy-boys will find they can actually play ball in a stadium more than 10 years old.
However, the cost of a ticket isn't what keeps people out of baseball. Checking the A's website, I find that I can purchase an advance ticket for $10, and fairly nice seats for $30.
Tickets for the Raiders start at $26 for a small zone up high. And, for decent seats (comparable to the $30 for Baseball) you're looking at $61. And you admit yourself that most of the people going to games are from out-of-town.
The problem isn't cost, it's being able to believe that the show is worth seeing.
What, you couldn't say Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Jeri Ryan, Majel Barrett?
Get out of the basement, man.
Sheesh.
As someone who does work in the systems of a top-10 US card issuer, I can tell you we lose over 3 million USD to fraud every MONTH. And the company I work for is nowhere close to being the biggest! (The top couple of banks are separated by a decimal place worth of volume from the rest)
As most of you probably know, banks make money by earning a small amount of money on each of a lot of transactions. $3 million worth of loss takes a LOT of transactions.
Every time some fraud scheme comes up on Slashdot, everyone bitches that the banks don't do enough.
Do you really, truly think that banks aren't interested in plugging a $3 million/month leak?
The problem is that, a lot like hackers vs. DRM - or spammers vs. every geek on Earth - the people looking to break the system are always one step ahead.
Phishing will die off on the same day we geeks manage to stop the last spammer. They have similar tactics, and do at some points overlap. And, since we are much better equipped than banks to fight that battle, and we have yet to win, you can assume that day is far off.
Remember, banks are in the business of making transactions, not software. Keep in mind what you're asking them to be good at is in no way how they make money. Find/invent a solution yourself and sell it to them. I guarantee they'll be interested, so long as your answer costs less than $3 million USD/year.
I'll tell you what. You pick a date for the end of hostilities.
You see, as everyone knows, we're currently training the Iraqi Army, and working with it. Your implication that, somehow, we're still at war with the nation of Iraq because their Army never signed a paper is not only moronic, but an outright lie.
But maybe Wikipedia (article on Operation Iraqi Freedom) will grant you your wish for someone other than Bush to declare things at an end:
"US forces ordered Iraqi forces within Baghdad to surrender, or the city would face a full-scale assault. Iraqi government officials had either disappeared or had conceded defeat, and on April 9, 2003, Baghdad was formally occupied by US forces and the power of Saddam Hussein was declared ended........General Tommy Franks assumed control of Iraq as the supreme commander of occupation forces. Shortly after the sudden collapse of the defense of Baghdad, rumors were circulating in Iraq and elsewhere that there had been a deal struck (a "safqua") wherein the US had bribed key members of the Iraqi military elite and/or the Ba'ath party itself to stand down."
Quite honestly, if you're looking for a general or for Saddam to sign something, they all ran with their tails between their legs. It was over, and everyone but a coward like yourself knew it.
You're seriously going to quote Slate to me? Why don't you just say, "WAAAAaaaa", and get it over with? The Internet is terribly bad at covering real history, so why don't you just go to the Library and look up some articles published on the situation in Germany in 1947. I love how you liberal jag-offs accuse decent people of the crap you're up to...I can see Howard Dean's arm coming out your ass. "WAAAaaaaaa"
And, of course, if you want a doctored photo, why don't you take your sad-sack self and go to Reuters?
Opening of hot war against Iraq: March 19, 2003.
Ending of hot war against Iraq: May 1, 2003.
Total duration of war against Iraq (known as Operation Iraqi Freedom): 13 days.
My history is a bit shaky at points, but I believe WWII was significantly longer than 13 days.
Occupation of Iraq begins: May 2, 2003
Operation of US troops in Iraqi borders continues to this day.
Current duration of Iraq occupation: roughly 3 years, 18 weeks.
Occupation of Germany begins: May 8, 1945
Occupation of Germany by US forces continues to this day.
Current duration of German occupation: roughly 66 years, 17 weeks.
Maybe you should review both the current situation in Iraq, and the reality of postwar Germany. See also "Werewolf".
Once you put someone - anyone - beyond all ability to be ridiculed, you put their life and opinions above the realm where people may discuss it as one of their own.
We human beings make fun of our own. We human beings kid around, tease, and poke at each other. Did you see the American show, "Last Comic Standing"? Josh Blue, a comic on there, had a solid case of cerebal palsy, as evidenced by his constant, jerky motion.
You know why he won?
The guy could laugh at himself. He could laugh at us laughing at him. He could laugh at stereotypes. He could laugh.
Maybe you could learn something about yourself from Josh.
Nothing in this thread so far - my earlier jest included - is so spiteful and cruel that even Steven himself couldn't get a chuckle from it.
Maybe the problem is that some people in this world take themselves and their conditions too damn seriously.
Strike that, I'm sure that's the problem.
Applicants must provide their own Star Wars voice changer for use when addressing Mr. Hawking.
I wouldn't use an iPod to wipe my ass.
Why is it that the same people who want to embrace the wholesale slaughter of embryos to drive stem cell research - which is genetically engineering drugs - get up in arms about GE food?
Seems to me that these folks just value their dinner more than their humanity
If you're actually willing to fork over your money to EA for the next Madden update - which EA has freely admitted will be released for the console with known, significant bugs - then I don't see why you should propose to be concerned with the quality of the experience.
:-)
Just buy yourself a nice LCD - you'll probably never have the game running long enough to see the trails.
Of course, if you couple your XBOX360 (which I do intend to buy when we get to hardware v2) with a plasma TV, you'll save a ton on your heating bills this winter.
How many of you have played an RTS game?
No one gets to start off with a modern industrial complex and a space program. You start out with a few poor villagers. Then, those villagers work at building up a Civilization, stopping at points which involve a fair amount of labor.
There was a time when the USA was also a dumping ground for cheap labor. Our grandparents through great-great-grandparents worked very hard at dirty jobs for long hours.
Then someone got the "Organized Labor", "Industrial Revolution", "Clean Air Act" upgrades. Those laid the groundwork for the "40-hr Work Week", "Military-Industrial Complex" and "Civic Green Space" upgrades. That, in turn, unlocked "Space Program", which allowed us to advance our Civilization to the Information Age.
The US has managed to do a pretty good job assembling a Rush strategy to catch up to civs that got a headstart on us.
China is turtling right now....give it time, it'll get its upgrades.
"If I can pay $20 for local telephone service, something that requires burying miles of cabling, why are wireless prices so high???"
Because it's all the same satellite-and-landline based backbone.
Let me put it this way...what do you think happens to your call after the tower gets it? How do you think landline customers get your call?
Think, McFly.
Speaking of taking drugs, you do realize who built the Internet, right?
It was the same Big Government(TM) that you seem to despise. They even went and involved that darn Military-Industrial complex! And Ma Bell's remnants! Hey, that's a monopoly!
You have to realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Fiber does not lay itself. Routers do not monitor themselves. Servers - of any OS - require regular maintenance and TLC.
Who will provide it for free? Some anonymous coward?
I think not.
Realize that your communications will always, always be monitored because YOU and I did not create the comm path.
Inferior hardware in a cute package with a gimmicky interface outsells something twice as powerful.
Sounds like Mac vs. PC all over again, except cute has a price advantage instead of the other way around.
Should be interesting.
Sadly, those days are behind us."
You only believe this because you're young enough to have no living memory of those other projects.
All projects have limitations and compromises - either due to limited knowledge or limited resources. Every material we have is finite - even genius.
You only believe the current stuff is somehow different because you're buying the propaganda of historians.
I have to believe the reason the creators of Winternals cashed in is that the uncovering of massive, unlicensed use at Geek Squad demonstrated that Winternals was just enabling hacks to charge way, way too much for supporting PCs.
I know if I had a tool of mine abused in that way, I'd look to get out of the business. This sounds like as good a way to do that as any.
You must be a teacher.
I don't believe that from the decidedly pro-public-school stance you take, or the insulting tone you take about the relationship between a child and its parents.
No, I can tell you're a teacher because your punctuation and capitalization are atrocious, because your argument consists of a string of sentence fragments and run-on sentences, and because your entire post has the distinct air of an idiot who was given a shiny button and told he can use it to bend small children to his will.
And, because at the end of the post I describe above, you dare to lament the "lack of arts, music and p.e.". And you make this lament as though the reason we need to focus on basics in the modern school wasn't made disgustingly obvious by your preceding butchering of the English language.
And to forestall the comments, I learned how to write English by learning from my parents, by studying German, and by reading the works of professional writers. Public school teachers had precious little to do with it.
"endless series of skirmishes without any clear goals or much way to define "winning" or "losing", and I can see how that could easily be boring or frustrating to play."
Doesn't this pretty much define every pubbie server for every FPS ever made?
EA has exclusive licenses with Vietnam, Korea and Iraq, preventing any games set in these places from being done by other companies.
Looks like we'll have to get CoD: Hippie Beatdown to explore the next few years of the "Greatest Generation".
It's the typical European arrogance.
There's something in the European attitude today that makes them think that they can control the world by passing laws and making "judgements". It probably stems from having failed to gain complete world domination through 500 years of inflicting their rule on any country they could sail to.
The Geneva Conventions forbid a country from being subject to any law or treaty it has not passed. Therefore, the UK has begun an illegal court procedure against a Russian firm. We should protest and break shop windows!