On a serious note, tethering was supposed to be there without the need to jailbreak your phone, but it is not available in US, and it is not available in Germany. Could someone tell me where it is available? Phone companies are the scum that are only slightly worse than the music industry.
It is clearly the fiscally responsible thing to do.
Really? Slamming garbage into the surface of the moon is the fiscally responsible thing to do? How about about not littering the moon's surface with debris and send a probe to search for water? Oh, wait that will cost more money.
You do understand what "fiscally responsible" means, right? If doing the research another way would cost more money then crashing the spacecraft clearly is the fiscally responsible thing to do.
Did anyone else notice that all the Nintendo games mentioned are first party games? I always thought that was exaggerated, but I guess it has some backing evidence.
Yes, I thought about commenting on that but it was beside the point so I didn't. It's interesting though and if I were a third party developer it'd give me pause...
However, was there not research showing that the attach rate (i.e. frequency of game buying) was very much lower for casual/Wii gamers? Making the Wii continue to pay might be difficult.
That's a myth.
From Wikipedia:
Best selling PS3 games:
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (3.31 million)
MotorStorm (3.31 million)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (3 million shipped)
Xbox 360 games selling more than 3.31 million:
Halo 3 (8.1 million)
Gears of War (5 million, may include PC version)
Gears of War 2 (5 million)
Grand Theft Auto IV (4.074 million approximately)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (3.772 million approximately)
Call of Duty: World at War (3.35 million approximately)
Wii games selling more than 3.31 million:
Wii Sports (45.71 million)
Wii Play (22.98 million)
Wii Fit (18.22 million)
Mario Kart Wii (15.4 million)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (8.43 million)
Super Mario Galaxy (8.02 million)
Mario Party 8 (6.72 million)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (4.52 million)
Link's Crossbow Training (3.76 million)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (3.4 million)
Animal Crossing: City Folk (3.38 million)
So the Wii has 5 games that have sold more than any game on either the PS3 or the Xbox 360.
Looking at it another way, the top 10 PS3 games have sold a total of 21.4 million copies, the top 10 Xbox 360 games have sold a total of 29 million copies and the 10 Wii games have sold a total of 133 million copies. The consoles themselves have sold 21.3, 28, and 50 million copies each respectively. So for the Wii, excluding Wii Sports, that's 87 million top 10 games for 50 million consoles: 1.7 games per console. The other two consoles manage only 1 top 10 game per console.
In terms of total games, PS3 has sold 94 million and the Wii has sold 353 million. Not sure about the Xbox 360. So that's 4.4 games per PS3 and 7 games per Wii (6 excluding Wii Sports).
Clearly, the idea that the Wii has a lower "attach" rate is pure BS. It might have been true initially but now the attach rate is significantly higher for the Wii.
a small implanted device that... is less invasive than implants
That's because the summary was poor. What they meant was "a small device implanted on the surface of the brain that... is less invasive than devices implanted deep in the brain".
Now, with a better sensor system, you have another problem - it's still just a game, the players don't really know how to sword-fight.
I thought that increased realism was part of the point, though. I'd be interested in a swordfighting game that required learning something resembling a real-world skill, so that I'm prepared to... uh, battle skeleton warriors.
What people want is the illusion of doing something they can't do. Guitar Hero is popular because it feels like you're playing a guitar even though the skills aren't really anything like what a real guitar requires. Increased realism doesn't have much to do with it - presumably if people really wanted to play guitar they'd go to a music teacher, if they really wanted to learn how to handle a sword they'd take up fencing or whatever.
Sword-fighting is always going to be unrealistic in a game because there is no resistance in the "target". How can you be parried? It doesn't matter how good the controller is, it's just not going to be a realistic experience.
I guess the test of this reasoning is, would there be a market for a Guitar Hero imitator where the skills carry over somewhat to actual guitar, instead of being basically Simon with music?
That game already exists: Guitar Rising. since you obviously haven't heard of it I think we can assume that there is in fact not much of a market for it.
Did you miss the lightning battle at the end of the movie with some interdimensional god and a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man? If that's not an action sequence, what is it?
You mean the one where they stood in one spot on top of the building still for the whole scene?
The show was good, a handful of people here saying it sucked makes no difference in the big picture.
The big picture is this: the shows ratings were too low. What it came down to in the end was that Fox could afford to renew either TtSCC or Dollhouse and it went with Dollhouse because that show seems to be more likely to pick up viewers given its DVR and Hulu audiences and Joss Whedon's cult status. Plus TtSCC had already had 31 episodes to establish an audience and had failed to do so, while Dollhouse had only had 12. The only factor in TtSCC favour was the impending release of T4.
What the article dosn't talk about was the change-over in corporate leadership and show time scheduling. As the studio leadership changed over, they had new people take over that wanted to push their perfered shows; the re-do the scheduleing and put Terminator: TSCC at a time slot that was certin to kill the show, just so they could take the better time slot and push their programming.
The show lost most of its viewers well before the timeslot change. Take a look at the ratings on Wikipedia. Season one opened with a 11.1, immediately dropped to 6.2, and trended down throughout the season until it finished with a 5.0. Season two started with a 4.1 in essentially the same timeslot (8pm instead of 9pm) but continued to lose viewers, it was down to a 3.2 by episode 13 (just before the timeslot change).
Too bad, it was a good story line, and they never had filler episodes, each episode was a continuation of the previous, which i liked very much.
They certainly did have filler episodes - in this country we're still about half a dozen episodes from the end and I'm finding it tough going as there is simply not enough movement on the overall story arc. Overall I thought the writing on the first season was reasonably good but it seems to have dropped off in the second season. Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker have not impressed me. Summer Glau has been good though.
Considering the explanation in Terminator about why the Terminator killed those other Sarah Connors, I don't believe Skynet would have even known where to begin with trying to kill John's grandparents. And anyone who knows timetravel knows you don't just go back and kill everything in sight. Skynet could end up ensuring that it never gets created.
So send a Terminator back to Sarah Connor's time and instead of trying to kill her just have it find out who the grandparents were. Have it record that somewhere safe and then in the altered future Skynet will know who they are.
From the definition of steal, courtesy of dictionary.com:
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance
Both of those definitions imply that the thief is denying the original owner the thing stolen. Copyright infringement doesn't have that attribute. Neither of those definitions fit particularly well. So why you do you want to call one offence (copyright infringement) by the name of a different offence? I can't see any legitimate reason, so you must be just looking to get some sort of emotional response from people.
Just use the correct term: copyright infringement.
That would mean, that we acknowledge the fine as just and appropriate, but I, personally, don't.
Having the community contribute is a protest against the penalty as it reduces the impact on those members who have been singled out by the authorities. It seems like the way to go if you do not consider the fine to be just and appropriate. Trying to act like the fine hasn't been imposed is ineffective as a protest as it's not an option for those who have been convicted.
If you thought the fine was just and appropriate then the ethical thing to do would be to leave it to those convicted to pay it.
Because they are trying to save their jobs. Let's take a look at the facts, the REAL facts and use it to analyze what they are saying here:
First, the given FACTS:
1) The Ozone layer took millions, if not BILLIONS of years to form
OK, so we just need one.
Now, let's look at what you are saying:
1) CFC's in our AC's and deodorant cans broke the Ozone layer, by 90% in some places. It took less than 100 years for this to happen.
2) We reduced (not stopped) our CFC usage a couple of decades ago and now the Ozone layer has repaired itself.
Now, look at our given FACT and then look at #2 above. If the Ozone layer took millions/billions of years to form naturally, then... and here is the important part... how could it REBUILD itself naturally in a couple of decades, what took millions/billions to do the first time?
Who the hell said it had repaired itself? I live in New Zealand and I can tell you that burn times here are much lower than they were 20 years ago. Being directly affected by it I have no doubt that the ozone hole is a fact and that it has not noticeably recovered since CFCs were banned. What has happened is that it has stopped getting worse. Look at thesegraphs. The ozone hole has not repaired itself.
The fact that they have corporate accounts paying for access to the service should preclude the 'beta' label. I like a lot of what Google has done, but sometimes it seems like the whole beta thing is just a convenient excuse for failure, or as a free pass for iffy behavior like testing in production.
It's just a label. It doesn't mean anything other than "we're not finished with this yet". And when did they use it as an excuse?
Or,about 1 in 15000 chance of being abducted by a stranger. Even if you go non-family only, it's only about 1 per 10000... Where did you get 1 in 560??
Granted, it's nowhere near the remoteness of a lightning strike, but the odds of an abduction by a non-family member are remote at best.
That 1 in 15000 chance is the chance per year. I think the 1 in 560 number is the chance over someone's entire childhood. We can approximate the total chance of abduction as 18/15000, i.e. 1 in 833, which is not too dissimilar.
But the lightning strike chance is annual as well so you are right to compare the 1 in 15000 chance of abduction with the 1 in 280,000 chance of lightning strike.
Now, if you take that 12,000 number, multiply it by 18 (years of childhood), and then take that result (216,000) and determine the percentage that represents of the child population in the US (82,457,018...), you get about a.26% chance of being kidnapped by a stranger.
You can't do it that way though. Over 18 years 216k children will be abducted by non-family members, sure, but the number of children in the US over 18 years is not 82M. You need to compare it to the total number of people who were children during that 18 year period. An estimate would be to use the population that is younger than 36.
I would like to know where the hell the firmware update IS?
I have opened a ticket with Seagate for each drive. Followed the directions (which were linked to here last week) in detail, and I have heard back NOTHING.
Not even an acknowledgment that they have looked at my tickets. I got a "your ticket was created" email, and that is it.
Same here. But now I see that the knowledge base page on the original issue is saying to email discsupport@seagate.com direct. Try that.
"Most"(1) PC BIOSes are socketed for the very reason that they are nasty to replace otherwise, and it doesn't really affect the cost too much to do so.
The Sims sold over 100,000,000 units to date so assuming they were all sold for just $10 each, The Sims broke $1 billion in sales long ago.
The claim they are making is that GH3 is the first single game to reach $1B. The 100 million number for The Sims is a total for all the games and expansions. The Sims 2 has sold over 13 million copies so it is probably approaching $1B by itself though.
There are definitely other games that have broken the $1 billion mark (Wii Fit) and simply haven't announced it. (How much of those sales are actual PROFIT?)
Yes, I suspect WiiFit has got close, if not passed the $1B. According to Wikipedia it had sold 8.76 million copies worldwide as of the 30th of September 2008. If the average price is over $115 then it has made $1B.
There was probably some kind of contractual obligation to send out these disks, but why the keenness to make sure the user's players were up to date? I can't imagine that Bestbuy or Samsung want to add features to the players, as if the players are lacking the user might buy a new one instead. I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.
My guess is that players without the latest firmware will be unable to play the latest discs. At which point the customers will start returning those players to Best Buy. Cheaper for them to mail out a disc than to have a customer tie up some employees time with diagnosing the problem and updating the firmware (even at the wages BB pay).
So far all the positively moderated posts have advocated 2.6. Here's a slightly contrary view. You know 2.4. It seems to satisfy your needs. Why exactly are you considering change? Is there something 2.4 doesn't do that you want? I realise you might be asking in case there is some improvement that 2.6 may possibly provide that you've missed, but if the current setup does what you need then why would you even consider a change? My advice: stick with 2.4 unless 2.6 provides something additional that you definitely need.
This is going to be the same for any group of prime numbers you pick.
Counter-example: I pick 3 and 5. 3x5+1 is 16 which is not prime. The demonstration is only valid is you pick all the first N prime numbers.
No, that's covered in the proof: "... or there is a prime number or prime numbers which the resultant number could be decomposed into but are not in the original finite set of primes." The resultant number (16) is divisible by a prime that is not in your set (2). Therefore there are more primes than are in your set.
Slashdot Mirror
On a serious note, tethering was supposed to be there without the need to jailbreak your phone, but it is not available in US, and it is not available in Germany. Could someone tell me where it is available? Phone companies are the scum that are only slightly worse than the music industry.
Works in NZ. Very nice via Bluetooth!
It is clearly the fiscally responsible thing to do.
Really? Slamming garbage into the surface of the moon is the fiscally responsible thing to do? How about about not littering the moon's surface with debris and send a probe to search for water? Oh, wait that will cost more money.
You do understand what "fiscally responsible" means, right? If doing the research another way would cost more money then crashing the spacecraft clearly is the fiscally responsible thing to do.
Did anyone else notice that all the Nintendo games mentioned are first party games? I always thought that was exaggerated, but I guess it has some backing evidence.
Yes, I thought about commenting on that but it was beside the point so I didn't. It's interesting though and if I were a third party developer it'd give me pause...
Yes they did.
However, was there not research showing that the attach rate (i.e. frequency of game buying) was very much lower for casual/Wii gamers? Making the Wii continue to pay might be difficult.
That's a myth.
From Wikipedia:
Best selling PS3 games:
Xbox 360 games selling more than 3.31 million:
Wii games selling more than 3.31 million:
So the Wii has 5 games that have sold more than any game on either the PS3 or the Xbox 360.
Looking at it another way, the top 10 PS3 games have sold a total of 21.4 million copies, the top 10 Xbox 360 games have sold a total of 29 million copies and the 10 Wii games have sold a total of 133 million copies. The consoles themselves have sold 21.3, 28, and 50 million copies each respectively. So for the Wii, excluding Wii Sports, that's 87 million top 10 games for 50 million consoles: 1.7 games per console. The other two consoles manage only 1 top 10 game per console.
In terms of total games, PS3 has sold 94 million and the Wii has sold 353 million. Not sure about the Xbox 360. So that's 4.4 games per PS3 and 7 games per Wii (6 excluding Wii Sports).
Clearly, the idea that the Wii has a lower "attach" rate is pure BS. It might have been true initially but now the attach rate is significantly higher for the Wii.
I also had trouble parsing this:
That's because the summary was poor. What they meant was "a small device implanted on the surface of the brain that ... is less invasive than devices implanted deep in the brain".
Now, with a better sensor system, you have another problem - it's still just a game, the players don't really know how to sword-fight.
I thought that increased realism was part of the point, though. I'd be interested in a swordfighting game that required learning something resembling a real-world skill, so that I'm prepared to... uh, battle skeleton warriors.
What people want is the illusion of doing something they can't do. Guitar Hero is popular because it feels like you're playing a guitar even though the skills aren't really anything like what a real guitar requires. Increased realism doesn't have much to do with it - presumably if people really wanted to play guitar they'd go to a music teacher, if they really wanted to learn how to handle a sword they'd take up fencing or whatever.
Sword-fighting is always going to be unrealistic in a game because there is no resistance in the "target". How can you be parried? It doesn't matter how good the controller is, it's just not going to be a realistic experience.
I guess the test of this reasoning is, would there be a market for a Guitar Hero imitator where the skills carry over somewhat to actual guitar, instead of being basically Simon with music?
That game already exists: Guitar Rising. since you obviously haven't heard of it I think we can assume that there is in fact not much of a market for it.
Teach them all a lesson about attaching strange USB drives to their machines: fill the drives with viruses!
Christmas. Bah humbug.
Did you miss the lightning battle at the end of the movie with some interdimensional god and a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man? If that's not an action sequence, what is it?
You mean the one where they stood in one spot on top of the building still for the whole scene?
The show was good, a handful of people here saying it sucked makes no difference in the big picture.
The big picture is this: the shows ratings were too low. What it came down to in the end was that Fox could afford to renew either TtSCC or Dollhouse and it went with Dollhouse because that show seems to be more likely to pick up viewers given its DVR and Hulu audiences and Joss Whedon's cult status. Plus TtSCC had already had 31 episodes to establish an audience and had failed to do so, while Dollhouse had only had 12. The only factor in TtSCC favour was the impending release of T4.
What the article dosn't talk about was the change-over in corporate leadership and show time scheduling. As the studio leadership changed over, they had new people take over that wanted to push their perfered shows; the re-do the scheduleing and put Terminator: TSCC at a time slot that was certin to kill the show, just so they could take the better time slot and push their programming.
The show lost most of its viewers well before the timeslot change. Take a look at the ratings on Wikipedia. Season one opened with a 11.1, immediately dropped to 6.2, and trended down throughout the season until it finished with a 5.0. Season two started with a 4.1 in essentially the same timeslot (8pm instead of 9pm) but continued to lose viewers, it was down to a 3.2 by episode 13 (just before the timeslot change).
Too bad, it was a good story line, and they never had filler episodes, each episode was a continuation of the previous, which i liked very much.
They certainly did have filler episodes - in this country we're still about half a dozen episodes from the end and I'm finding it tough going as there is simply not enough movement on the overall story arc. Overall I thought the writing on the first season was reasonably good but it seems to have dropped off in the second season. Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker have not impressed me. Summer Glau has been good though.
It doesn't even try to kill his grandparents.
Considering the explanation in Terminator about why the Terminator killed those other Sarah Connors, I don't believe Skynet would have even known where to begin with trying to kill John's grandparents. And anyone who knows timetravel knows you don't just go back and kill everything in sight. Skynet could end up ensuring that it never gets created.
So send a Terminator back to Sarah Connor's time and instead of trying to kill her just have it find out who the grandparents were. Have it record that somewhere safe and then in the altered future Skynet will know who they are.
> the "copying = theft" mistake
From the definition of steal, courtesy of dictionary.com: 2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment. 3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance
Both of those definitions imply that the thief is denying the original owner the thing stolen. Copyright infringement doesn't have that attribute. Neither of those definitions fit particularly well. So why you do you want to call one offence (copyright infringement) by the name of a different offence? I can't see any legitimate reason, so you must be just looking to get some sort of emotional response from people.
Just use the correct term: copyright infringement.
That would mean, that we acknowledge the fine as just and appropriate, but I, personally, don't.
Having the community contribute is a protest against the penalty as it reduces the impact on those members who have been singled out by the authorities. It seems like the way to go if you do not consider the fine to be just and appropriate. Trying to act like the fine hasn't been imposed is ineffective as a protest as it's not an option for those who have been convicted.
If you thought the fine was just and appropriate then the ethical thing to do would be to leave it to those convicted to pay it.
I gotta say it... I was pretty shocked to see "Thagomizer" excluded from the article!
It's a term for the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus, which comes from this Far Side cartoon.
I'd say you probably were the only one to think of Far Side as science fiction, yes.
Because they are trying to save their jobs. Let's take a look at the facts, the REAL facts and use it to analyze what they are saying here:
First, the given FACTS: 1) The Ozone layer took millions, if not BILLIONS of years to form OK, so we just need one.
Now, let's look at what you are saying: 1) CFC's in our AC's and deodorant cans broke the Ozone layer, by 90% in some places. It took less than 100 years for this to happen. 2) We reduced (not stopped) our CFC usage a couple of decades ago and now the Ozone layer has repaired itself.
Now, look at our given FACT and then look at #2 above. If the Ozone layer took millions/billions of years to form naturally, then... and here is the important part... how could it REBUILD itself naturally in a couple of decades, what took millions/billions to do the first time?
Who the hell said it had repaired itself? I live in New Zealand and I can tell you that burn times here are much lower than they were 20 years ago. Being directly affected by it I have no doubt that the ozone hole is a fact and that it has not noticeably recovered since CFCs were banned. What has happened is that it has stopped getting worse. Look at these graphs. The ozone hole has not repaired itself.
The post from Google is here. Show me where they use the beta status as an excuse.
The fact that they have corporate accounts paying for access to the service should preclude the 'beta' label. I like a lot of what Google has done, but sometimes it seems like the whole beta thing is just a convenient excuse for failure, or as a free pass for iffy behavior like testing in production.
It's just a label. It doesn't mean anything other than "we're not finished with this yet". And when did they use it as an excuse?
Or,about 1 in 15000 chance of being abducted by a stranger. Even if you go non-family only, it's only about 1 per 10000... Where did you get 1 in 560?? Granted, it's nowhere near the remoteness of a lightning strike, but the odds of an abduction by a non-family member are remote at best.
That 1 in 15000 chance is the chance per year. I think the 1 in 560 number is the chance over someone's entire childhood. We can approximate the total chance of abduction as 18/15000, i.e. 1 in 833, which is not too dissimilar.
But the lightning strike chance is annual as well so you are right to compare the 1 in 15000 chance of abduction with the 1 in 280,000 chance of lightning strike.
Now, if you take that 12,000 number, multiply it by 18 (years of childhood), and then take that result (216,000) and determine the percentage that represents of the child population in the US (82,457,018...), you get about a .26% chance of being kidnapped by a stranger.
You can't do it that way though. Over 18 years 216k children will be abducted by non-family members, sure, but the number of children in the US over 18 years is not 82M. You need to compare it to the total number of people who were children during that 18 year period. An estimate would be to use the population that is younger than 36.
I'm surprised C++ didn't make the list.
It didn't make the list because apparently the authors think that C, C++, and C# are all the same language.
I would like to know where the hell the firmware update IS? I have opened a ticket with Seagate for each drive. Followed the directions (which were linked to here last week) in detail, and I have heard back NOTHING.
Not even an acknowledgment that they have looked at my tickets. I got a "your ticket was created" email, and that is it.
Same here. But now I see that the knowledge base page on the original issue is saying to email discsupport@seagate.com direct. Try that.
"Most"(1) PC BIOSes are socketed for the very reason that they are nasty to replace otherwise, and it doesn't really affect the cost too much to do so.
That's the case for desktops but not for laptops.
The Sims sold over 100,000,000 units to date so assuming they were all sold for just $10 each, The Sims broke $1 billion in sales long ago.
The claim they are making is that GH3 is the first single game to reach $1B. The 100 million number for The Sims is a total for all the games and expansions. The Sims 2 has sold over 13 million copies so it is probably approaching $1B by itself though.
There are definitely other games that have broken the $1 billion mark (Wii Fit) and simply haven't announced it. (How much of those sales are actual PROFIT?)
Yes, I suspect WiiFit has got close, if not passed the $1B. According to Wikipedia it had sold 8.76 million copies worldwide as of the 30th of September 2008. If the average price is over $115 then it has made $1B.
There was probably some kind of contractual obligation to send out these disks, but why the keenness to make sure the user's players were up to date? I can't imagine that Bestbuy or Samsung want to add features to the players, as if the players are lacking the user might buy a new one instead. I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.
My guess is that players without the latest firmware will be unable to play the latest discs. At which point the customers will start returning those players to Best Buy. Cheaper for them to mail out a disc than to have a customer tie up some employees time with diagnosing the problem and updating the firmware (even at the wages BB pay).
So far all the positively moderated posts have advocated 2.6. Here's a slightly contrary view. You know 2.4. It seems to satisfy your needs. Why exactly are you considering change? Is there something 2.4 doesn't do that you want? I realise you might be asking in case there is some improvement that 2.6 may possibly provide that you've missed, but if the current setup does what you need then why would you even consider a change? My advice: stick with 2.4 unless 2.6 provides something additional that you definitely need.
This is going to be the same for any group of prime numbers you pick.
Counter-example: I pick 3 and 5. 3x5+1 is 16 which is not prime. The demonstration is only valid is you pick all the first N prime numbers.
No, that's covered in the proof: "... or there is a prime number or prime numbers which the resultant number could be decomposed into but are not in the original finite set of primes." The resultant number (16) is divisible by a prime that is not in your set (2). Therefore there are more primes than are in your set.