The Xbox and GFW marketplaces have technically been the same anyway (the entire services have been), Microsoft simply let the GFW service run after the xbox service instead of letting it develop on its own which caused a lot of the initial problems (and still does for some). GFW also doesn't have dedicated support, the Xbox crew does that all.
I guess they just wanted to make it official, at least as far as the marketplaces are concerned, that the PC service is just a peripheral 'thing' of the Xbox service.
Chrome suddenly got a huge share of the market and the only thing Mozilla could think of was to make their release schedule mirror Chrome's.
Simple solution:
Mozilla should remain Mozilla. They're neither Google nor Microsoft. Whoever's running Mozilla should get their heads out of their arses and focus on making the best browser, not on getting to the highest version number.
It's a very simple separation, i just don't understand why people have to keep blowing it out of proportion with either a vicious hate against either or an entire book's worth of explanations that amount to nothing.
It strikes me how Moriarty only mentions semi-historical strategy games. Is he (or Ebert for that matter) even aware of things like Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Half-Life, Limbo, World of Goo or even The Void?
I think their notion of videogames leads them to try the ultra-popular stuff from 10-20 years ago and then look at games as one single genre of b-movie like material. The games i mentioned aren't perfect, but i assume everyone here can agree that at least 2 of those list are worthy of another look by the 'art experts'.
HD-DVD was limited to 15Gb at most, as a 'standard for the future' it's severely lacking. Next year we'll be getting 8 layer Blurays which can hold 200Gb...
On that argument alone i'd choose the latter over the former, at least for now. Besides, we'll be getting HCD some time soon anyway.
And yet the US celebrates it when "a hero from China/Iraq" or whatever country would publish their secret documents and would "protest heavily" if their own country would prosecute them.
Of course, that's the rub with this kind of plan. Still, a media tax on internet services would solve everyone's problem, $5-10 depending on the service you're already paying for. You could argue that people who don't download any media at all shouldn't be paying this, but that would raise a lot of technical issues which would get into big brother territory - Besides, bandwidth limits would take care of things like that.
Of course, this should also mean that things like iTunes would have to get cheaper aswell. A lot cheaper.
Music execs: "This internet thing, what is it? It's destroying our sales! We must destroy it!"
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a result of old age and a refusal to adapt and evolve. They are destroying themselves by consistently denying and ignoring the only way for them to move forward. When a multinational, multi-billion dollar industry is forced on it's knees by services (originally) at least provided by geeks in basements, it's time to stop believing they have any credibility left.
It's a statistics thing, though i agree the current sample size is too small to base too many theories around the concept of a habitable zone. The important factor here is liquid water, which is only found in the right conditions, ie, the habitable zone. At the moment we don't know whether it's possible for any other conditions to generate life, let alone how - But on the plus side, this can only mean that this is a worst case scenario and there are *at least* 500 million planets in the galaxy capable of supporting (human) life.
The requirement for this certificate will be a series of classes or a test, which in itself requires a 'nominal fee' to take. More bureaucratic nonsense serving no purpose other than fill the pockets of people who have no clue about what they're actually selling.
Are those prosecutors and agents actually taking a step back and look at what they're doing anymore? It's like they're deliberately trying to look as idiotic as possible.
Cinema revenue has been increasing because of the higher price point of 3D movies, and the general increase in ticket prices. Add the recent (very high) inflation to this, and you'll notice that all the numbers Hollywood accountants are bragging about are actually a solid indicator of the movie industry going south, fast.
Roger Ebert has been a staunch opponent of 3D, and while he's not the most important man in the industry, his word carries a lot of weight with much of the movie going audience. If such a prominent figure takes up arms against it you can bet that more people will do so, and soon. Add to that the recent reports of how the current implementation of 3D is actually harmful to the human eye and you've got an avalanche waiting to happen.
What's even more, independant movies are on the rise and studios with little to no input from their parent companies (like, for instance, Pixar) are proving to be much more succesful in the long run than any of the execs' own creations - They have been relying on licensed franchises for their money for a long time now, exceptions such as Inception or Avatar not withstanding. This only shows how desperate Hollywood has become.
Not to mention that the (video)games industry has overtaken Hollywood by a not-so-inconsiderable margin. It says a lot when your product is being outsold by a supposed children's toy to the same audience you're trying to sell your 'works of art' to.
Oh, and Farmville has been more profitable than Avatar.
Cinemas as they are now are on their way out. They will still exist, but in a far more specialized manner. They will get more expensive, but in return you'll get a better experience. They will get rarer, but the quality will go up.
That is, if the film industry finally realizes it's entered the new millenium over a decade ago and starts to reform it's business accordingly.
2010:
China: "This is an outrage! Liu Xiaobo cannot be nominated! He is an enemy of the state!"
US: "Deal with it."
2011:
US: "This is an outrage! WikiLeaks cannot be nominated! They're an enemy of the state!"
China: "Deal with it."
I recently started watching DS9 again... Some of you call it a bad B5 copy. I disagree, but to each his own.
Point is, i'm watching it again for the third time, not counting when i saw the occasional episodes on TV. I can't see myself doing that with any of the newer shows - They simply don't have any lasting value.
Fringe is a good example. It's good to watch, and may even be a lot of fun, but it's only fun to watch once, since it hinges so heavily on sudden reveals and surprise plot twists. I think the studios realize this and simply delay the DVD releases to make the audience 'forget' about certain plot developments so they'll be more inclined to buy it (in answer to TheRaven64's post).
I can't really explain, but somehow older SF series (like DS9 or B5) don't have to rely on that kind of shock and awe. I think it's got to do with how they focus much more on the 'science' than the 'fiction' part than later series do.
Relativity.
If there is something 14 billion lightyears to the east, and something 14 billion lightyears to the west, that means there is, relatively to us, 28 billion lightyears between them. In other words, relatively to each other, those somethings have moved 28 billion lightyears apart in 14 billion years - Can you see what i'm getting at here?
Time and space are, contrary to common sense, factors that need to be taken into account seperately from speed which is usually a combination of the two.
You can do whatever you want with your PS3, as long as you keep to yourself. If you want to go online (and use Sony's network) you will have to obey the rules, however, or not go online at all.
I don't want cheaters and hackers on PSN. I want to go online and have some fun, not be confronted with self-righteous "hackers" who's only fun they care about is their own. They can go rot for all i care.
Mobile phones aren't listed.
That, and the value of this information is that it links certain browsing behaviour (your facebook account) with a certain phone number and address. By itself the information is quite worthless, but it's the combination that makes it so valuable.
Which is, i think, the ultimate goal of this entire ordeal.
As has been mentioned before, this plan is right on the proverbial slippery slope. Once it's been implemented, further censorship can easily be passed through legislation, furthermore experience shows us that any law can be bent in favor of the ones who made it, thus ensuring that certain sites can be accused of offering content that's covered under the censorship laws with little to now evidence.
The internet was a major blow to how governments used to operate. Since the mid-90's communication between anyone in the world has become trivial, as opposed to it being VERY expensive or simply completely impractical to do so, not to mention that the lower volume of communication traffic meant it was easier to check on it.
Now that the internet has proliferated as it has, free communication flow is night impossible to stop. Governments really want to keep communication under their control, since it's a lot harder to spread propaganda and have people actually believe it when they can readily access any site in the world and easily communicate with people across the globe in an instant. Even China has trouble maintaining this, and i expect they will drop it once their internal economy develops to a point where a civilian network structure can be erected that would simply be too impractical to hunt down given the population.
All this stuff with copyright violations and censorship laws has started in the US though, where i think it was believed easiest to contain because most of the backbones are there. That's just a guess though. All i know for sure is that those laws and international lawsuits are being abused to let governments take back control over civilian communication.
I'm waiting for the first infiltrants in information networks to spew a little information on the net... It's bound to happen sooner rather than later.
Conspiracy theory? Maybe. Sounds a little too plausible to dismiss though.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this news?
The Xbox and GFW marketplaces have technically been the same anyway (the entire services have been), Microsoft simply let the GFW service run after the xbox service instead of letting it develop on its own which caused a lot of the initial problems (and still does for some). GFW also doesn't have dedicated support, the Xbox crew does that all.
I guess they just wanted to make it official, at least as far as the marketplaces are concerned, that the PC service is just a peripheral 'thing' of the Xbox service.
Chrome suddenly got a huge share of the market and the only thing Mozilla could think of was to make their release schedule mirror Chrome's.
Simple solution:
Mozilla should remain Mozilla. They're neither Google nor Microsoft. Whoever's running Mozilla should get their heads out of their arses and focus on making the best browser, not on getting to the highest version number.
... very simple.
Science is HOW, religion is WHY.
Both mesh and can coexist peacefully. Neither interferes with the other.
Why can't people see this and stop forcing one on the other?
Science is *how*, religion is *why*.
It's a very simple separation, i just don't understand why people have to keep blowing it out of proportion with either a vicious hate against either or an entire book's worth of explanations that amount to nothing.
That's why it tanked in the 90's. It got boring.
It strikes me how Moriarty only mentions semi-historical strategy games. Is he (or Ebert for that matter) even aware of things like Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Half-Life, Limbo, World of Goo or even The Void?
I think their notion of videogames leads them to try the ultra-popular stuff from 10-20 years ago and then look at games as one single genre of b-movie like material. The games i mentioned aren't perfect, but i assume everyone here can agree that at least 2 of those list are worthy of another look by the 'art experts'.
HD-DVD was limited to 15Gb at most, as a 'standard for the future' it's severely lacking. Next year we'll be getting 8 layer Blurays which can hold 200Gb...
On that argument alone i'd choose the latter over the former, at least for now. Besides, we'll be getting HCD some time soon anyway.
And yet the US celebrates it when "a hero from China/Iraq" or whatever country would publish their secret documents and would "protest heavily" if their own country would prosecute them.
Of course, that's the rub with this kind of plan. Still, a media tax on internet services would solve everyone's problem, $5-10 depending on the service you're already paying for. You could argue that people who don't download any media at all shouldn't be paying this, but that would raise a lot of technical issues which would get into big brother territory - Besides, bandwidth limits would take care of things like that.
Of course, this should also mean that things like iTunes would have to get cheaper aswell. A lot cheaper.
Or.... Wait.
Did no one else think of A View To A Kill when they read this?
Music execs: "This internet thing, what is it? It's destroying our sales! We must destroy it!"
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a result of old age and a refusal to adapt and evolve. They are destroying themselves by consistently denying and ignoring the only way for them to move forward. When a multinational, multi-billion dollar industry is forced on it's knees by services (originally) at least provided by geeks in basements, it's time to stop believing they have any credibility left.
It's a statistics thing, though i agree the current sample size is too small to base too many theories around the concept of a habitable zone. The important factor here is liquid water, which is only found in the right conditions, ie, the habitable zone. At the moment we don't know whether it's possible for any other conditions to generate life, let alone how - But on the plus side, this can only mean that this is a worst case scenario and there are *at least* 500 million planets in the galaxy capable of supporting (human) life.
The requirement for this certificate will be a series of classes or a test, which in itself requires a 'nominal fee' to take. More bureaucratic nonsense serving no purpose other than fill the pockets of people who have no clue about what they're actually selling.
Are those prosecutors and agents actually taking a step back and look at what they're doing anymore? It's like they're deliberately trying to look as idiotic as possible.
Cinema revenue has been increasing because of the higher price point of 3D movies, and the general increase in ticket prices. Add the recent (very high) inflation to this, and you'll notice that all the numbers Hollywood accountants are bragging about are actually a solid indicator of the movie industry going south, fast.
Roger Ebert has been a staunch opponent of 3D, and while he's not the most important man in the industry, his word carries a lot of weight with much of the movie going audience. If such a prominent figure takes up arms against it you can bet that more people will do so, and soon. Add to that the recent reports of how the current implementation of 3D is actually harmful to the human eye and you've got an avalanche waiting to happen.
What's even more, independant movies are on the rise and studios with little to no input from their parent companies (like, for instance, Pixar) are proving to be much more succesful in the long run than any of the execs' own creations - They have been relying on licensed franchises for their money for a long time now, exceptions such as Inception or Avatar not withstanding. This only shows how desperate Hollywood has become.
Not to mention that the (video)games industry has overtaken Hollywood by a not-so-inconsiderable margin. It says a lot when your product is being outsold by a supposed children's toy to the same audience you're trying to sell your 'works of art' to.
Oh, and Farmville has been more profitable than Avatar.
Cinemas as they are now are on their way out. They will still exist, but in a far more specialized manner. They will get more expensive, but in return you'll get a better experience. They will get rarer, but the quality will go up.
That is, if the film industry finally realizes it's entered the new millenium over a decade ago and starts to reform it's business accordingly.
2010: China: "This is an outrage! Liu Xiaobo cannot be nominated! He is an enemy of the state!" US: "Deal with it." 2011: US: "This is an outrage! WikiLeaks cannot be nominated! They're an enemy of the state!" China: "Deal with it."
I recently started watching DS9 again... Some of you call it a bad B5 copy. I disagree, but to each his own. Point is, i'm watching it again for the third time, not counting when i saw the occasional episodes on TV. I can't see myself doing that with any of the newer shows - They simply don't have any lasting value. Fringe is a good example. It's good to watch, and may even be a lot of fun, but it's only fun to watch once, since it hinges so heavily on sudden reveals and surprise plot twists. I think the studios realize this and simply delay the DVD releases to make the audience 'forget' about certain plot developments so they'll be more inclined to buy it (in answer to TheRaven64's post). I can't really explain, but somehow older SF series (like DS9 or B5) don't have to rely on that kind of shock and awe. I think it's got to do with how they focus much more on the 'science' than the 'fiction' part than later series do.
Relativity. If there is something 14 billion lightyears to the east, and something 14 billion lightyears to the west, that means there is, relatively to us, 28 billion lightyears between them. In other words, relatively to each other, those somethings have moved 28 billion lightyears apart in 14 billion years - Can you see what i'm getting at here? Time and space are, contrary to common sense, factors that need to be taken into account seperately from speed which is usually a combination of the two.
You can do whatever you want with your PS3, as long as you keep to yourself. If you want to go online (and use Sony's network) you will have to obey the rules, however, or not go online at all. I don't want cheaters and hackers on PSN. I want to go online and have some fun, not be confronted with self-righteous "hackers" who's only fun they care about is their own. They can go rot for all i care.
Mobile phones aren't listed. That, and the value of this information is that it links certain browsing behaviour (your facebook account) with a certain phone number and address. By itself the information is quite worthless, but it's the combination that makes it so valuable.
Which is, i think, the ultimate goal of this entire ordeal. As has been mentioned before, this plan is right on the proverbial slippery slope. Once it's been implemented, further censorship can easily be passed through legislation, furthermore experience shows us that any law can be bent in favor of the ones who made it, thus ensuring that certain sites can be accused of offering content that's covered under the censorship laws with little to now evidence. The internet was a major blow to how governments used to operate. Since the mid-90's communication between anyone in the world has become trivial, as opposed to it being VERY expensive or simply completely impractical to do so, not to mention that the lower volume of communication traffic meant it was easier to check on it. Now that the internet has proliferated as it has, free communication flow is night impossible to stop. Governments really want to keep communication under their control, since it's a lot harder to spread propaganda and have people actually believe it when they can readily access any site in the world and easily communicate with people across the globe in an instant. Even China has trouble maintaining this, and i expect they will drop it once their internal economy develops to a point where a civilian network structure can be erected that would simply be too impractical to hunt down given the population. All this stuff with copyright violations and censorship laws has started in the US though, where i think it was believed easiest to contain because most of the backbones are there. That's just a guess though. All i know for sure is that those laws and international lawsuits are being abused to let governments take back control over civilian communication. I'm waiting for the first infiltrants in information networks to spew a little information on the net... It's bound to happen sooner rather than later. Conspiracy theory? Maybe. Sounds a little too plausible to dismiss though.