Jevons paradox. I'll just leave that here and let you think about how it works with increasingly fast hardware, increasing hard drive space and the obvious parallell to increasing screen real estate.
Seriously though, I think that what Microsoft really wants with Skype is their userbase (and maybe their audio tech), and over time they will all be funneled into Windows Live. For some reason they don't think this is worth the money it costs as the users are unlikely to move on to Windows Live so they just cancel it.
Often the opponent (in multiplayer) yes, but rarely portrayed negatively. Considering how many countries should hate USA it's a little bit odd. However, I should have used "usually" rather than "always".
The enemies in FPS games are always whoever the US doesn't like at a given time (this includes most titles produced outside of the US as well), be they russians, germans, vaguely-middle-eastern-something, vietnamese, chinese, the list goes on. Now we finally get a game where the roles are changed. I can see why some Americans are upset, but frankly it's about time.
Also: how much is it going to cost them to regain the goodwill they lost among users? They've already given away games to make up for their failure (those were surely worth more than 2.21$ per user), but I doubt that's going to cover it. I think the cost of this in the long run will make 170M seem like pocket change...
According to statistics from Wikipedia, 0.83% of North Korea's population lives in slave camps and 0.75% of the US population lives in prison. One could argue that slave camps are worse than prisons, but the numbers are very much comparable.
This is a very nice move by Japan - rather than bending their laws to maximize corporate profit, a disturbing trend, they do the absolute opposite and force Sony to take measures that protect customers (which will cost Sony quite a bit). Customers win, Sony loses. Excellent, they really deserved it!
I wish I could buy a house for just three times an average annual income. Heck, I'd be extremely happy to get a small apartment for that amount of money.
Thank you for this eloquently written post, which conveys what I actually wanted to say but obviously failed horribly with. I wholeheartedly agree with all of it. I just wish there wouldn't be a need for a Peter Finch, and that when something needs to be done it should be carefully calculated to reduce the damage as much as possible - something that is rarely on the agenda for mobs. If we all considered our actions more carefully there would be a lot less violence in this world.
Technology and faith are in no way mutually exclusive. Science and faith (at least the orthodox kind) are somewhat exclusive, since one relies on critical thinking and the other requires a lack of it. Granted, it is possible to be able to think critically yet choose not to apply that skill on ones beliefs, but the people who do that are few and far between (and frankly I have never understood why they do it that way).
Anonymous Coward calling someone a coward, oh the irony. Anyway, this isn't about standing up for oneself or someone else, this is a simple risk/benefit calculation. Even Power himself told them not to do it. IMO vigilante justice sometimes works out well, other times it crashes and burns. Apparently not a popular opinion to voice on Slashdot though.
A bunch of people monitored the thief for a while and then confronted a possibly armed criminal face to face without even bothering to call the police? For a laptop? Just how little do these folks think their lives are worth? While it's always nice to hear these stories when they end well, I'm just waiting for the inevitable armed criminal who gets a little too nervous during such an intervention and the following bloodbath.
The tax actually applies to all memory cards, which means that it applies to the (usually MicroSD) ones in phones that people do put legally and/or illegally obtained music on. In other words this is only slightly more stupid than the really stupid law on CDs and DVDs.
That could be said about pretty much every single technological improvement. Every little helps - we wouldn't have the technology we have today if we dismissed breakthroughs because they didn't completely revolutionize the industry.
Yea, but Spotify also controls a certain % of the market, which of course gives them something to put up against them. Granted, right now the record companies are most likely very much in charge, but one can always hope that will change (and Spotify won't turn all evil).
Commenting before you RTFA should be illegal. Also, writing ambiguous summaries should be illegal. As I responded to someone else I thought it had been made illegal to use your data plan in ways that hinder the carrier from making money. Cynical as I am, it wouldn't surprise me if it was made illegal soon as it's already in most EULAs (where I live anyway).
Slashdot Mirror
Jevons paradox. I'll just leave that here and let you think about how it works with increasingly fast hardware, increasing hard drive space and the obvious parallell to increasing screen real estate.
Seriously though, I think that what Microsoft really wants with Skype is their userbase (and maybe their audio tech), and over time they will all be funneled into Windows Live. For some reason they don't think this is worth the money it costs as the users are unlikely to move on to Windows Live so they just cancel it.
Is anyone surprised? Microsoft has a long history of bad ideas and costly projects met with very bad reviews. However, they usually keep pumping money into them until they are successful. If that doesn't work they just use their monopoly to make sure people use their software anyway^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W in an attempt to make people use their software.
Fame can counter almost any deficiency, even having been a software developer.
Often the opponent (in multiplayer) yes, but rarely portrayed negatively. Considering how many countries should hate USA it's a little bit odd. However, I should have used "usually" rather than "always".
The enemies in FPS games are always whoever the US doesn't like at a given time (this includes most titles produced outside of the US as well), be they russians, germans, vaguely-middle-eastern-something, vietnamese, chinese, the list goes on. Now we finally get a game where the roles are changed. I can see why some Americans are upset, but frankly it's about time.
Also: how much is it going to cost them to regain the goodwill they lost among users? They've already given away games to make up for their failure (those were surely worth more than 2.21$ per user), but I doubt that's going to cover it. I think the cost of this in the long run will make 170M seem like pocket change...
According to statistics from Wikipedia, 0.83% of North Korea's population lives in slave camps and 0.75% of the US population lives in prison. One could argue that slave camps are worse than prisons, but the numbers are very much comparable.
The link was broken. Thankfully I had a soon-to-be-antiquated URL bar so I could see what was wrong and change it.
Nope, but when a country bends over for the companies it might be time to think it over.
Low power compared to a regular x86 chip, sure. Low power compared to a chip built from the bottom up to give as much power/watt as possible? No way.
This is a very nice move by Japan - rather than bending their laws to maximize corporate profit, a disturbing trend, they do the absolute opposite and force Sony to take measures that protect customers (which will cost Sony quite a bit). Customers win, Sony loses. Excellent, they really deserved it!
I wish I could buy a house for just three times an average annual income. Heck, I'd be extremely happy to get a small apartment for that amount of money.
Thank you for this eloquently written post, which conveys what I actually wanted to say but obviously failed horribly with. I wholeheartedly agree with all of it. I just wish there wouldn't be a need for a Peter Finch, and that when something needs to be done it should be carefully calculated to reduce the damage as much as possible - something that is rarely on the agenda for mobs. If we all considered our actions more carefully there would be a lot less violence in this world.
Technology and faith are in no way mutually exclusive. Science and faith (at least the orthodox kind) are somewhat exclusive, since one relies on critical thinking and the other requires a lack of it. Granted, it is possible to be able to think critically yet choose not to apply that skill on ones beliefs, but the people who do that are few and far between (and frankly I have never understood why they do it that way).
Anonymous Coward calling someone a coward, oh the irony. Anyway, this isn't about standing up for oneself or someone else, this is a simple risk/benefit calculation. Even Power himself told them not to do it. IMO vigilante justice sometimes works out well, other times it crashes and burns. Apparently not a popular opinion to voice on Slashdot though.
A bunch of people monitored the thief for a while and then confronted a possibly armed criminal face to face without even bothering to call the police? For a laptop? Just how little do these folks think their lives are worth? While it's always nice to hear these stories when they end well, I'm just waiting for the inevitable armed criminal who gets a little too nervous during such an intervention and the following bloodbath.
All engineers take note of what they did and how they did it, it's up to us to do the same thing if something like that happens in our country.
The tax actually applies to all memory cards, which means that it applies to the (usually MicroSD) ones in phones that people do put legally and/or illegally obtained music on. In other words this is only slightly more stupid than the really stupid law on CDs and DVDs.
I wonder how long it will take them to find pork and drugs in his house. Maybe even get creative and throw in some controversial literature as well?
so they think you think about them without you having to
I thought that was the whole point of Facebook?
That could be said about pretty much every single technological improvement. Every little helps - we wouldn't have the technology we have today if we dismissed breakthroughs because they didn't completely revolutionize the industry.
Yea, but Spotify also controls a certain % of the market, which of course gives them something to put up against them. Granted, right now the record companies are most likely very much in charge, but one can always hope that will change (and Spotify won't turn all evil).
Not RIAA, but some of the large record companies do own a part of Spotify. However, they don't own even close to 51%, so they don't control it.
Commenting before you RTFA should be illegal. Also, writing ambiguous summaries should be illegal. As I responded to someone else I thought it had been made illegal to use your data plan in ways that hinder the carrier from making money. Cynical as I am, it wouldn't surprise me if it was made illegal soon as it's already in most EULAs (where I live anyway).