After paying $50+ for the Everquest2 game, then $15 a month for the privelege of actually using the game, then finding out that Sony wanted a piece of the action on items sold in Station Exchange auctions...I got an idea of how Sony treats its customers. I'm sure they are elated that MS took this step, now they can treat 3rd party vendors the same way.
Am I bitter? Oh, a tad.
I've since moved to Guildwars. It's possibly the best RPG game I've ever played.
It's part of an elaborate BWM Mini advertising campaign, posted on/. before. The animation is pretty good though. I thought it was real at first glance.
Googlecoins? Are you kidding? By their very nature, each one would be of nearly limitless value!
This would have the net effect of rendering the price of everything equal to just one Googlecoin.
Economic structures would collapse overnight. National economies would crumble, plunging us all into a chaos not seen since Apple announced they were switching to Intel.
I used to take the simplistic view that going to prison WAS paying your debt to society. As such, once released you were a free (wo)man again. Not that I had any love for sexual predators, I felt the requirement of notification to law enforcement when moving was unconstitutional and a violation of the "paid your debt" philosophy.
But as it was explained to me, when sexual predators are freed from prison, they are not done serving their sentence. The notification is part of a type of "bargain": release in exchange for notification. But as another poster pointed out, many do not uphold their end of the deal. I suppose you could have a hypothetical situation where the inmate prefers to stay in prison rather than notify of movement. Of course this is unacceptable in practice due to prison overpopulation and it causes an (undue?) burden on taxpayers. So in the end, it's more of a forced option.
So in the end, I'm not sure lifetime GPS Tracking is a violation of rights, but I think in practice it won't be very useful.
Still, I can see a persuasive argument being made that it is a restriction on the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" inalienable right, which is by definition not a right that can be granted or taken away by the government according to the US Constitution.
Well, for me it was just a timing thing. I was playing EQ2 for a month or two when Skype started getting a lot of press. Then the lightbulb went off. Now my guildmates and I Skype rather than type. It makes it a whole different game. So much so that if I ever lose the ability to Skype while multi-player gaming...I'd rather not game.
Not that this is new for gaming or anything...it's been around for ever. I haven't tried it for just simple telephony since I don't make int'l calls, and have plenty of minutes on my cell. The quality is better than my cell though!
I'd still like to play around and set up an Asterisk box...but the time. God I don't ever have enough time.
I'm often dissappointed in fines like this when I find out that the execs did a little jail time, paid a fine, but still have 6 Lamborghinis in the garage. It's important to implement fines that are severely punishing...like the people involved would have been WAY better off not pulling this kind of crap. The should be destitute. I can't stomach the wealth accumulated on the backs of the bruised.
I'm not saying that's what is going on here, I don't know. It just makes me sick when most people involved still come out ahead, and there is maybe one or two sacrificial lambs.
I don't think I emotionally connected to a game experience more than I did with D&D. I had characters that survived for years. I believe D&D provides the greatest mechanism to put more of who you are, or perhaps who you want to be, in your character than any other game. The reasons for this are obvious since nearly every aspect of the game comes from your own imagination.
When my oldest, greatest character died...through a scummy DM plot, I might add...I lightly burned the char sheet and buried it in a forest in a mayonnaise jar. I dug it up years later and began playing him again...rez'd by a cool DM plot!
For video games, I've got to say solving Myst, and that last Warthog drive at the end of Halo were pretty damn cool.
"What lessons, he asks, can open source projects learn from popular proprietary software?"
How about that marketing isn't free? Commercials, magazine ads, favorable "reviews" all cost money.
Word of mouth (keyboard) works for geeks because we know how to research products, read reviews, and of course read/., the sacred bastian of impartial news that it is. But that information doesn't readily filter down to John Q.
It's too late for anyone to even think about putting a stranglehold on nanotech. I humbly submit three must-have technology arenas that depend on it: aircraft, auto, and chip design. manufacturers.
Current military jet propulsion is just about at it's limit. The engines could burn hotter, but that would mean melting the turbine blades, which I believe are a titanium alloy. The only way to currently combat this is to coat the blades in a ceramic, but getting the ceramic to stick to the alloy is problematic. Nanotechnology allows researchers to test the coating and how different additives such as boron can help. If the engine can burn hotter, than the aircraft can go quite a bit faster.
Fuel cells are arguably the way the automotive industry will derive power for vehicles 25 to 50 years from now. A huge part of the problem with fuel cells is the total inefficiency of the product. This is not due to a design flaw however, just a manufacturing one. Looking at the metallic-ceramic interface at the micron and nanometer lengthscales reveals that the two substances barely touch...a large source of the inefficiency.
Finally, if you want photonic or plasmonic computer chips, you're going to have to rely on nanotechnology. Current research being conducted is using carbon nanotube interconnects in the circuit. These allow electrons (or photons) to move throughout the system with little to no loss of the data carrier (the *on).
There are other must-have applications that may seem to have a negative environmental impact, but actually help it. Corrosion resistant materials for instance. Ask yourself how the Yucca Mountain containment facility will keep from developing even the tiniest hole due to corrosion, over 10,000 years?
Just food for thought. If you are insterested in separating the science from the fiction, check out the research being done at OSU's Material Science Engineering School[osu.edu]
As a graphic designer, I've always found AppleScript kind of neat, but never really found anything that applied to me or my work that did anything more than save a click or two.
I took another look at it about a year ago. After some very short trial and error, I wrote a script that provides mail merge capability to Adobe's InDesign, a program that does not have such functionality natively.
I'm currently working on another script that will go through an Address Book subfolder and email a PDF newsletter to those contacts that have an email address, or print an addressed newsletter to those contacts with only a physical mail address.
I totally agree with your points save number three. Apple's G4 line lasted 4 years. How long do you expect them to maintain that product line? No one seems to bemoan the loss of Pentium Pro, MMX, G3 (only 2 years).
Just food for thought. I'm not a systems analyst though, so perhaps I'm missing something.
I just tried BitTorrent downloading for the first time this past week. I like watching the show "Lost" and missed an episode, so I downloaded it via BitTorrent. It only took about an hour or so, and I was able to watch. That was cool.
Then I decided to see what this baby could really do, so I tried downloading a movie, for "scientific research" of course. It took seven hours and was in spanish despite being marked english. So I tried again. The second time the movie didn't match the title. The third time was a charm. But I doubt I'll ever do it again.
First, it's stealing and I recognize that. I don't mind paying for a good movie. I suppose some do, but you'd have to have way more time the money. It costs roughly $3.00 to rent a movie at Blockbuster. NetFlix users probably average less. You get better quality with a DVD, and it's more convenient.
I will say it seems like a great resource for Porn though. Hehe.
I have dabbled with the idea of opening a gaming center. I have done much research and additionally called many game centers across the country for guidance. You can also become a member of igames for an enormous support system.
These guys are on the right track with 300 systems. You are far more likely to succeed with 100 systems charging $1/hour than with 20 systems charging $5/hour...even with the additional hardware costs.
But the equipment these guys are using is just plain stupid. You'd have to hope to catch lightning in bottle to make this pay off. The projectors are neat, I wanted 42" plasma's. However, the eyes fatigue with a screen size over 19 inches...and 19 inch monitors are cheap. The big screens are selling point at first, but in the end it's the visceral experience of LAN gaming that continues to bring people in.
And Alienware systems? ALIENWARE!? The name will only get you so far, and really just with n00bs. Dollar for dollar, you can custom-build better systems, or save a bunch of $$$ for comparative performance.
The sphere is neat, but at what cost? It would be a novelty seat...something people would do once, maybe twice at what would have to be a premium price. You'd get a line to use for the first few weeks/months...and then the hype would settle and the reality of the wallet would set in. Further, you could give the impression that your gaming center is overpriced.
Finally, and this is just my personal pet peeve with many gaming centers...I don't like the headphones. They keep the noise down, but they also isolate the player in an environment that is supposed to bring gamers together. My design had small rooms with 4-8 machines each. Then you can yell all you want that your teammate sucks for not covering your six.
...for me anyway. That's the only gadget I feel I really need to have with me at all times. Would I like a digital camera, an MP3 player, and a PDA? Hell yes! But I don't want to have to wear the Batman Utility Belt to carry them all. There are some devices that come close, but none really have that Apple touch.
Granted, if you rolled all of those things into one device, the quality of each would probably not be as good as if you kept them separate. But I'd sacrifice some quality (and my cash) for one device that did all of those things.
The day I buy an iPod? When it uses VOIP for communication. When it has a mini iSight that swivels outward for photo taking, inward for videoconferencing, and sideways for storage. When it has not only iPhoto built in, but also iChat and iCal. All of that plus the original MP3 player is enough to make me shell out the cash.
Then again, maybe it's just not possible right now to incorporate all of that in a small enough form factor to make it comfortably portable.
Dr. Reddy? I knew that guy at LaHonda! Everyone thought he was worthless, so they gave him the cheapy-box project. I ran into him once and all he could do was babble on about touching the soul of your computer. I thought he was a loon, but I guess he made good.
I mean, that's cool and all, but come on! They want to replace a $20 (LOL) microphone with a $4000 (still LOL) cranial vibration sensor? Why? TFA says it so the computer can be voice controlled, but lots of people use voice activition with computers and cell phones without wearing anything on their head! I suppose it's so ambient noise doesn't interfere. Then again, heavy artillary fire will rattle the fillings right out of your teeth.
I've been to my share of strip clubs across the United States, and with the regrettable exception of a club in Akron, Ohio, I have never been tempted to access anything but my bank account at a strip club.
Unless you are a female stripper who worked there, in which case...what are you doing this weekend?
I suppose you are correct. If in public, what "right" to privacy do you have?
You purchased your groceries in a public grocery store, so I could write down everything you bought. You went to visit a friend using public streets, so I should be able to jot down your originating address, destination address, route you took, speed you drove, and how long you stayed there. Maybe the two of you went to a bar later for drinks. I now know what bar, what you ordered, and how much you had to drink. Did you talk at all in the bar? May I record what you both said? It might be personal in nature, but hey, you said it in a public place. I could follow you around all day, for the rest of your life, recording everything you do outside of the walls of your house.
Do you suppose for just a moment that you might feel like you're privacy had been invaded if this hypothetical situation were to happen? Do you think you might want to file a restraining order if I did all of that? What would your justification be since it all took place in public?
Think about that, and then tell us what right to privacy you think you have in public places.
If I rent office to Company X, and Company Y contacts me and says that Company X is infringing on their copyrights, trademarks, or patents...how is it incumbant upon me to investigate? Am I supposed to evict or lock out the tenant pending further investigation? Must I hire an investigating company to ensure that all future tenants are not infringing upon someone else's rights before they move in?
I'd tell Company Y to sue Company X and leave me out of it, I'm just the landlord.
I dunno, maybe the analogy doesn't fit, but it seems ridiculous the that anyone would even think to contact the ISP for such infringements.
Slashdot Mirror
After paying $50+ for the Everquest2 game, then $15 a month for the privelege of actually using the game, then finding out that Sony wanted a piece of the action on items sold in Station Exchange auctions...I got an idea of how Sony treats its customers. I'm sure they are elated that MS took this step, now they can treat 3rd party vendors the same way.
Am I bitter? Oh, a tad.
I've since moved to Guildwars. It's possibly the best RPG game I've ever played.
Check out thissite.
/. before.
It's part of an elaborate BWM Mini advertising campaign, posted on
The animation is pretty good though. I thought it was real at first glance.
Googlecoins? Are you kidding? By their very nature, each one would be of nearly limitless value!
This would have the net effect of rendering the price of everything equal to just one Googlecoin.
Economic structures would collapse overnight. National economies would crumble, plunging us all into a chaos not seen since Apple announced they were switching to Intel.
I'm surpised at you. Think before you post.
Apparently, you have to be able construct an FBI warning using nothing but your scarf, a pocketknife, and some damned-fine whittling.
Please post yours below:
occassionally at least.
I used to take the simplistic view that going to prison WAS paying your debt to society. As such, once released you were a free (wo)man again. Not that I had any love for sexual predators, I felt the requirement of notification to law enforcement when moving was unconstitutional and a violation of the "paid your debt" philosophy.
But as it was explained to me, when sexual predators are freed from prison, they are not done serving their sentence. The notification is part of a type of "bargain": release in exchange for notification. But as another poster pointed out, many do not uphold their end of the deal. I suppose you could have a hypothetical situation where the inmate prefers to stay in prison rather than notify of movement. Of course this is unacceptable in practice due to prison overpopulation and it causes an (undue?) burden on taxpayers. So in the end, it's more of a forced option.
So in the end, I'm not sure lifetime GPS Tracking is a violation of rights, but I think in practice it won't be very useful.
Still, I can see a persuasive argument being made that it is a restriction on the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" inalienable right, which is by definition not a right that can be granted or taken away by the government according to the US Constitution.
Well, for me it was just a timing thing. I was playing EQ2 for a month or two when Skype started getting a lot of press. Then the lightbulb went off. Now my guildmates and I Skype rather than type. It makes it a whole different game. So much so that if I ever lose the ability to Skype while multi-player gaming...I'd rather not game.
Not that this is new for gaming or anything...it's been around for ever. I haven't tried it for just simple telephony since I don't make int'l calls, and have plenty of minutes on my cell. The quality is better than my cell though!
I'd still like to play around and set up an Asterisk box...but the time. God I don't ever have enough time.
the crystal is subsequently heated...it strips the electrons from nearby deuterium atoms...the atoms then accelerated...they collide with it...
Who invented this thing? Rube Goldberg?
Just kidding and no offense to the researchers, this is awesome work. I just got a "Mousetrap" vibe reading the description.
It's late, I'm going home.
Sorry for the reply to my own post, I should have done some quick homework before posting.
According to Hoovers, Hynix's NET income for 2000-2002 was $7.5 Billion with a "B".
I'm not an accountant, and I'm sure there is a ton of expenses to come out of that figure...still, $185M just doesn't seem like that much.
How much did they make during that time?
I'm often dissappointed in fines like this when I find out that the execs did a little jail time, paid a fine, but still have 6 Lamborghinis in the garage. It's important to implement fines that are severely punishing...like the people involved would have been WAY better off not pulling this kind of crap. The should be destitute. I can't stomach the wealth accumulated on the backs of the bruised.
I'm not saying that's what is going on here, I don't know. It just makes me sick when most people involved still come out ahead, and there is maybe one or two sacrificial lambs.
Dungeons and Dragons.
I don't think I emotionally connected to a game experience more than I did with D&D. I had characters that survived for years. I believe D&D provides the greatest mechanism to put more of who you are, or perhaps who you want to be, in your character than any other game. The reasons for this are obvious since nearly every aspect of the game comes from your own imagination.
When my oldest, greatest character died...through a scummy DM plot, I might add...I lightly burned the char sheet and buried it in a forest in a mayonnaise jar. I dug it up years later and began playing him again...rez'd by a cool DM plot!
For video games, I've got to say solving Myst, and that last Warthog drive at the end of Halo were pretty damn cool.
"What lessons, he asks, can open source projects learn from popular proprietary software?"
/., the sacred bastian of impartial news that it is. But that information doesn't readily filter down to John Q.
How about that marketing isn't free? Commercials, magazine ads, favorable "reviews" all cost money.
Word of mouth (keyboard) works for geeks because we know how to research products, read reviews, and of course read
I heard that NORAD tracks all kinds of space junk.
It's too late for anyone to even think about putting a stranglehold on nanotech. I humbly submit three must-have technology arenas that depend on it: aircraft, auto, and chip design. manufacturers.
Current military jet propulsion is just about at it's limit. The engines could burn hotter, but that would mean melting the turbine blades, which I believe are a titanium alloy. The only way to currently combat this is to coat the blades in a ceramic, but getting the ceramic to stick to the alloy is problematic. Nanotechnology allows researchers to test the coating and how different additives such as boron can help. If the engine can burn hotter, than the aircraft can go quite a bit faster.
Fuel cells are arguably the way the automotive industry will derive power for vehicles 25 to 50 years from now. A huge part of the problem with fuel cells is the total inefficiency of the product. This is not due to a design flaw however, just a manufacturing one. Looking at the metallic-ceramic interface at the micron and nanometer lengthscales reveals that the two substances barely touch...a large source of the inefficiency.
Finally, if you want photonic or plasmonic computer chips, you're going to have to rely on nanotechnology. Current research being conducted is using carbon nanotube interconnects in the circuit. These allow electrons (or photons) to move throughout the system with little to no loss of the data carrier (the *on).
There are other must-have applications that may seem to have a negative environmental impact, but actually help it. Corrosion resistant materials for instance. Ask yourself how the Yucca Mountain containment facility will keep from developing even the tiniest hole due to corrosion, over 10,000 years?
Just food for thought. If you are insterested in separating the science from the fiction, check out the research being done at OSU's Material Science Engineering School[osu.edu]
Monica Bellucci is SO beautiful,
I'd gladly swim through a river of shit just to watch her panties go by in a laundry truck!
As a graphic designer, I've always found AppleScript kind of neat, but never really found anything that applied to me or my work that did anything more than save a click or two.
I took another look at it about a year ago. After some very short trial and error, I wrote a script that provides mail merge capability to Adobe's InDesign, a program that does not have such functionality natively.
I'm currently working on another script that will go through an Address Book subfolder and email a PDF newsletter to those contacts that have an email address, or print an addressed newsletter to those contacts with only a physical mail address.
It's fun stuff!
$22 Billion? Hell, that's about how much the nation's corporations spend in ONE DAY on their employees reading Slashdot!
No, seriously!
I totally agree with your points save number three. Apple's G4 line lasted 4 years. How long do you expect them to maintain that product line? No one seems to bemoan the loss of Pentium Pro, MMX, G3 (only 2 years).
Just food for thought. I'm not a systems analyst though, so perhaps I'm missing something.
I just tried BitTorrent downloading for the first time this past week. I like watching the show "Lost" and missed an episode, so I downloaded it via BitTorrent. It only took about an hour or so, and I was able to watch. That was cool.
Then I decided to see what this baby could really do, so I tried downloading a movie, for "scientific research" of course. It took seven hours and was in spanish despite being marked english. So I tried again. The second time the movie didn't match the title. The third time was a charm. But I doubt I'll ever do it again.
First, it's stealing and I recognize that. I don't mind paying for a good movie. I suppose some do, but you'd have to have way more time the money. It costs roughly $3.00 to rent a movie at Blockbuster. NetFlix users probably average less. You get better quality with a DVD, and it's more convenient.
I will say it seems like a great resource for Porn though. Hehe.
I have dabbled with the idea of opening a gaming center. I have done much research and additionally called many game centers across the country for guidance. You can also become a member of igames for an enormous support system.
These guys are on the right track with 300 systems. You are far more likely to succeed with 100 systems charging $1/hour than with 20 systems charging $5/hour...even with the additional hardware costs.
But the equipment these guys are using is just plain stupid. You'd have to hope to catch lightning in bottle to make this pay off. The projectors are neat, I wanted 42" plasma's. However, the eyes fatigue with a screen size over 19 inches...and 19 inch monitors are cheap. The big screens are selling point at first, but in the end it's the visceral experience of LAN gaming that continues to bring people in.
And Alienware systems? ALIENWARE!? The name will only get you so far, and really just with n00bs. Dollar for dollar, you can custom-build better systems, or save a bunch of $$$ for comparative performance.
The sphere is neat, but at what cost? It would be a novelty seat...something people would do once, maybe twice at what would have to be a premium price. You'd get a line to use for the first few weeks/months...and then the hype would settle and the reality of the wallet would set in. Further, you could give the impression that your gaming center is overpriced.
Finally, and this is just my personal pet peeve with many gaming centers...I don't like the headphones. They keep the noise down, but they also isolate the player in an environment that is supposed to bring gamers together. My design had small rooms with 4-8 machines each. Then you can yell all you want that your teammate sucks for not covering your six.
...for me anyway. That's the only gadget I feel I really need to have with me at all times. Would I like a digital camera, an MP3 player, and a PDA? Hell yes! But I don't want to have to wear the Batman Utility Belt to carry them all. There are some devices that come close, but none really have that Apple touch.
Granted, if you rolled all of those things into one device, the quality of each would probably not be as good as if you kept them separate. But I'd sacrifice some quality (and my cash) for one device that did all of those things.
The day I buy an iPod? When it uses VOIP for communication. When it has a mini iSight that swivels outward for photo taking, inward for videoconferencing, and sideways for storage. When it has not only iPhoto built in, but also iChat and iCal. All of that plus the original MP3 player is enough to make me shell out the cash.
Then again, maybe it's just not possible right now to incorporate all of that in a small enough form factor to make it comfortably portable.
Dr. Reddy? I knew that guy at LaHonda! Everyone thought he was worthless, so they gave him the cheapy-box project. I ran into him once and all he could do was babble on about touching the soul of your computer. I thought he was a loon, but I guess he made good.
I mean, that's cool and all, but come on! They want to replace a $20 (LOL) microphone with a $4000 (still LOL) cranial vibration sensor? Why? TFA says it so the computer can be voice controlled, but lots of people use voice activition with computers and cell phones without wearing anything on their head! I suppose it's so ambient noise doesn't interfere. Then again, heavy artillary fire will rattle the fillings right out of your teeth.
...nerd that ever haunted these nerdy halls!
I've been to my share of strip clubs across the United States, and with the regrettable exception of a club in Akron, Ohio, I have never been tempted to access anything but my bank account at a strip club.
Unless you are a female stripper who worked there, in which case...what are you doing this weekend?
You purchased your groceries in a public grocery store, so I could write down everything you bought. You went to visit a friend using public streets, so I should be able to jot down your originating address, destination address, route you took, speed you drove, and how long you stayed there. Maybe the two of you went to a bar later for drinks. I now know what bar, what you ordered, and how much you had to drink. Did you talk at all in the bar? May I record what you both said? It might be personal in nature, but hey, you said it in a public place. I could follow you around all day, for the rest of your life, recording everything you do outside of the walls of your house.
Do you suppose for just a moment that you might feel like you're privacy had been invaded if this hypothetical situation were to happen? Do you think you might want to file a restraining order if I did all of that? What would your justification be since it all took place in public?
Think about that, and then tell us what right to privacy you think you have in public places.
I'd tell Company Y to sue Company X and leave me out of it, I'm just the landlord.
I dunno, maybe the analogy doesn't fit, but it seems ridiculous the that anyone would even think to contact the ISP for such infringements.