One of the things the writer overlooks is the ability to release content in episodes. Instead of charging $30 for one game, a single adventure can be broken up and released in episodes or chapters for $10 each.
Penny Arcade and Strongbad have both successfully used this model and it also gives customers an opportunity to try a game without committing to an entire series.
This may even be good for independent developers because they would get feedback and money before completing development on the entire series.
Amazon sells plenty of unlocked GSM phones without all the bells and whistles for a "reasonable" price. For example, the Motorola V191 is only $89. I'm not entirely sure what your cost/quality/durability requirements are, but it looks like a solid phone.
- the Hun
It's very simple, the up-front cost is too high. Why don't you have solar panels on your roof?
I looked into getting solar panels for my house, but because I live in a gloomy part of the country it would take 15 years to recoup my investment. Consequently, the expected life of a panel is about 15 years. In a place like Arizona, the investment could be returned in as little as 5 years, but to power an average home it would still cost close to $30,000 dollars to get them installed.
A large corporation might be able to absorb a large upfront cost, but it's still a gamble. As a side note, several BP stations now have solar panels installed on the roof over the pumps.
The centralized media server concept will only last while cost of a single media PC is significantly more than the cost of the remote box. Doing a cost analysis, at what point will the cost of building and maintaning a media server capable of doing everything you mentioned outstrip the cost and convenience of buying a separate Media PC for each TV in the house? The real solution would be to set up an intelligent distributed network of Media PC's that acts like a media server, but doesn't have a centralized unit.
Why does everyone blame spellcheckers? If anything, they have improved my spelling. In the past I wouldn't bother looking up words like occur and probably would have spelled it 'occurr.' Now I can quickly check it on google, or watch MS Word correct it and learn how it's really spelled. The english language is full of words that are not spelled how they sound or have double letters in unexpected places. If I need to write a word more than once a year, I'll quickly learn how it is spelled when a spellchecker corrects it. Maybe I'm just lazy, but when I write dozens of emails a day I don't have time to look up every awkward word in the dictionary.
Perhaps they seem less like masters of the language, but at least today's kids are capable of reading and writing. Illiteracy was generally accepted 100 years ago, and still somewhat common 50 years ago. Of course, I'm not trying to say we have squashed it completely, but the situation has improved.
TiVo might go away, but the name will stick in every household
And when Tivo is gone it will be much easier to tell people, "I have a Tivo" and not feel the need to say "well, I really have the crappy DVR from my Cable Co." Many people have no idea what a DVR or PVR is, but if I say Tivo they understand right away. Have you ever tried asking for Velcro by it's generic name: hook and loop fasteners? It's like that.
Will any of the Media PC's be able to support Cable Card whenever it becomes available?
I use the Cable Company provided Scientific Atlanta DVR. It's a piece of junk, but it mostly works. The main thing that has kept me from building my own DVR is that I'll still need to rent a box from the cable company to decode the digital signal. When I can do it all with only one box, then I'll definitely be ready to switch.
That's because Patrick Stewart is a decent actor and can actually play characters other than Captian Picard.
The few times I've seen Leonard Nimoy in roles other than Spock I identified him as spock just as much because he acted like spock as because he looks like him. This leads me to believe he is probably not a very versatile actor.
There are plenty of examples of good actors that have moved beyond their roles in popular and long lived television series.
You aren't the only one. I currently pay more than $60 a month for the televison portion of my cable bill. I would happily hand that over to Tivo (after buying one) if I could download and watch shows on or after their release date. As an example, I've been saying to myself lately that the new Battlestar Galactica series looks great, but it's so hard to get into sci-fi show after missing several episodes so I don't watch it. I'd try to get my DVR to record it but the cable provided POS would never ba able to handle it.
That brings me to my second point, a Tivo ondemand service would have to 'just work.' I'm fairly patient with these things, but my wife isn;t and we are both fairly fed up with the crappy quality of our DVR however I just don't see the current incarnation of Tivo as a complete solution, just a bandage. Some day true video on demand will exist, and TV viewers will rejoice and be happy. If I had the capital I'd try to make it happen myself.
Am I the only person to have been misled by 2x and 3x Zoom. I bought my first digital camera after using an SLR for years. I was looking for a small portable camera capable of taking quick snapshots and vacation shots. At the time 2x optical zoom was common on ultraportables, and I bought a Canon S200. What I didn't know was that 2x meant 2 times the widest angle of the lense, not 2x real life size. The S200 has a zoom range equivalent to 35mm to 70mm lenses. But, when looking through an SLR lense, life size is about 50mm, so my camera really only zooms to 1.4x life size.
Overall, I have been very happy with my camera, but eventually I will replace it with one capable of at least 100mm equivalent.
The trick with linux is knowing what that "something" is. I have spent many hours searching the web and my manuals looking for a simple command in linux just because I didn't know the correct command to use or even the linux terminology for it.
However in windows I have always been able to "Click, Open, check, click, click, etc" until I find what I am looking for. It usually takes less than a half an hour the first time I do it.
I am now somewhat proficient as a linux user, but I am still lacking as an administrator.
I really wanted to watch Farscape because I liked what I saw in the first few episodes, but unfortunately the time-slot mixed with the life of a college student kept me from keeping up and it was frustrating to watch episodes out of order. The same thing happened to me with Babylon 5, and Buffy. Now that I have a DVR I record things I want to see.
Once Buffy went into Syndication on FX I watched the whole series, except the last season because I couldn't bear to wade through the Network BS of reruns every other week.
Does this remind anyone else of the Xanadu House? As a kid I always wanted on of those, they were supposed to be inexpensive to build, easy to maintain, and well insulated.
Maybe if they hadn't pushed all of the other aging technology with it, we would be seeing things like it for new small structures instead of thes extruded houses.
This would make it possible to stack the RGB pixels on top of each other making it possible to display any color with a single pixel. Would that make the resolution of my laptop three times greater?
Another not too old example of this sort of samping is Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" He stole his main beat from "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie.
I would have to agree that this sort of sampling without consent is illegal. Of course, the Vanilla Ice case was very blatant.
It would be useful if the system could be used to filter instead of block, at least for the first few months. Perhaps, if there is not response to a challenge after 72 hours, and email could be redirected to a 'Spam' or 'Bulk' filder. This way, If I get monthly newsletters from donotreply@... and I want to keep getting it, i can approve that email. After about 3 months of this type of filtering and I would probably have approved everything I want to receive. Then, I could turn it back to blocking instead of filtering.
Could a phone like this be used for making calls from my home network? I have a wireless access point and a cable modem. This phone would pay for itself very quickly if I could use it for long distance calls.
For less than $1700 I could buy another laptop, and set it up to do most of what that can do. Also, I dont have a a home security system, or climate control system to integrate it into, but I imagine a laptop could interface with those as well. For my entertainment center I could spend what I saved on a good universal remote and probably still have money left over.
I have always wanted to watch the Leonid Meteor Shower, but unfortunately I live in Cleveland where we have two types of weather. Cloudy, and Cloudy with Rain.
It is very possible to label these groups as terrorists. I would also like to add the KKK to the list of domestic terrorist groups, but I dont think the entirety of any of these groups is composed of terrorists. The main difference that I see, is that here we can punish the individuals that carry out these destructive acts with our existing laws.
Many people who belong to these organizations like PETA have strong feelings about the rights of animals and such, but do not support the violent acts of more radical members of their groups. Here we can prosecute those members and have no need to destroy the entire group. This makes it hard to classify them as terrorist groups. It is akin to classifying all Afghanis as terrorists when only a radical faction attacked us.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things the writer overlooks is the ability to release content in episodes. Instead of charging $30 for one game, a single adventure can be broken up and released in episodes or chapters for $10 each.
Penny Arcade and Strongbad have both successfully used this model and it also gives customers an opportunity to try a game without committing to an entire series.
This may even be good for independent developers because they would get feedback and money before completing development on the entire series.
Amazon sells plenty of unlocked GSM phones without all the bells and whistles for a "reasonable" price. For example, the Motorola V191 is only $89. I'm not entirely sure what your cost/quality/durability requirements are, but it looks like a solid phone. - the Hun
It's very simple, the up-front cost is too high. Why don't you have solar panels on your roof?
I looked into getting solar panels for my house, but because I live in a gloomy part of the country it would take 15 years to recoup my investment. Consequently, the expected life of a panel is about 15 years. In a place like Arizona, the investment could be returned in as little as 5 years, but to power an average home it would still cost close to $30,000 dollars to get them installed.
A large corporation might be able to absorb a large upfront cost, but it's still a gamble. As a side note, several BP stations now have solar panels installed on the roof over the pumps.
- the Hun
Those bags might be the best ever, but their website drove me away. Do you have a link to someplace selling them without all the flash?
- the Hun
The centralized media server concept will only last while cost of a single media PC is significantly more than the cost of the remote box. Doing a cost analysis, at what point will the cost of building and maintaning a media server capable of doing everything you mentioned outstrip the cost and convenience of buying a separate Media PC for each TV in the house? The real solution would be to set up an intelligent distributed network of Media PC's that acts like a media server, but doesn't have a centralized unit.
- the Hun
Why does everyone blame spellcheckers? If anything, they have improved my spelling. In the past I wouldn't bother looking up words like occur and probably would have spelled it 'occurr.' Now I can quickly check it on google, or watch MS Word correct it and learn how it's really spelled. The english language is full of words that are not spelled how they sound or have double letters in unexpected places. If I need to write a word more than once a year, I'll quickly learn how it is spelled when a spellchecker corrects it. Maybe I'm just lazy, but when I write dozens of emails a day I don't have time to look up every awkward word in the dictionary.
- the Hun
Perhaps they seem less like masters of the language, but at least today's kids are capable of reading and writing. Illiteracy was generally accepted 100 years ago, and still somewhat common 50 years ago. Of course, I'm not trying to say we have squashed it completely, but the situation has improved.
- the Hun
TiVo might go away, but the name will stick in every household
And when Tivo is gone it will be much easier to tell people, "I have a Tivo" and not feel the need to say "well, I really have the crappy DVR from my Cable Co." Many people have no idea what a DVR or PVR is, but if I say Tivo they understand right away. Have you ever tried asking for Velcro by it's generic name: hook and loop fasteners? It's like that.
- the Hun
Will any of the Media PC's be able to support Cable Card whenever it becomes available?
I use the Cable Company provided Scientific Atlanta DVR. It's a piece of junk, but it mostly works. The main thing that has kept me from building my own DVR is that I'll still need to rent a box from the cable company to decode the digital signal. When I can do it all with only one box, then I'll definitely be ready to switch.
- the Hun
They have a name for those: Infomercials.
- the Hun
That's because Patrick Stewart is a decent actor and can actually play characters other than Captian Picard.
The few times I've seen Leonard Nimoy in roles other than Spock I identified him as spock just as much because he acted like spock as because he looks like him. This leads me to believe he is probably not a very versatile actor.
There are plenty of examples of good actors that have moved beyond their roles in popular and long lived television series.
- the Hun
You aren't the only one. I currently pay more than $60 a month for the televison portion of my cable bill. I would happily hand that over to Tivo (after buying one) if I could download and watch shows on or after their release date. As an example, I've been saying to myself lately that the new Battlestar Galactica series looks great, but it's so hard to get into sci-fi show after missing several episodes so I don't watch it. I'd try to get my DVR to record it but the cable provided POS would never ba able to handle it.
That brings me to my second point, a Tivo ondemand service would have to 'just work.' I'm fairly patient with these things, but my wife isn;t and we are both fairly fed up with the crappy quality of our DVR however I just don't see the current incarnation of Tivo as a complete solution, just a bandage. Some day true video on demand will exist, and TV viewers will rejoice and be happy. If I had the capital I'd try to make it happen myself.
-the Hun
Am I the only person to have been misled by 2x and 3x Zoom. I bought my first digital camera after using an SLR for years. I was looking for a small portable camera capable of taking quick snapshots and vacation shots. At the time 2x optical zoom was common on ultraportables, and I bought a Canon S200. What I didn't know was that 2x meant 2 times the widest angle of the lense, not 2x real life size. The S200 has a zoom range equivalent to 35mm to 70mm lenses. But, when looking through an SLR lense, life size is about 50mm, so my camera really only zooms to 1.4x life size.
Overall, I have been very happy with my camera, but eventually I will replace it with one capable of at least 100mm equivalent.
-the Hun
The trick with linux is knowing what that "something" is. I have spent many hours searching the web and my manuals looking for a simple command in linux just because I didn't know the correct command to use or even the linux terminology for it.
However in windows I have always been able to "Click, Open, check, click, click, etc" until I find what I am looking for. It usually takes less than a half an hour the first time I do it.
I am now somewhat proficient as a linux user, but I am still lacking as an administrator.
-the Hun
I really wanted to watch Farscape because I liked what I saw in the first few episodes, but unfortunately the time-slot mixed with the life of a college student kept me from keeping up and it was frustrating to watch episodes out of order. The same thing happened to me with Babylon 5, and Buffy. Now that I have a DVR I record things I want to see.
Once Buffy went into Syndication on FX I watched the whole series, except the last season because I couldn't bear to wade through the Network BS of reruns every other week.
-the Hun
Does this remind anyone else of the Xanadu House? As a kid I always wanted on of those, they were supposed to be inexpensive to build, easy to maintain, and well insulated.
Maybe if they hadn't pushed all of the other aging technology with it, we would be seeing things like it for new small structures instead of thes extruded houses.
Xanadu House
or going to the bathroom (please god say you people at least leave the computer for that.)
Sometimes, if I am going to be a while, I take my laptop with me. It's kind of like a digital newspaper.
This would make it possible to stack the RGB pixels on top of each other making it possible to display any color with a single pixel. Would that make the resolution of my laptop three times greater?
-the Hun
Another not too old example of this sort of samping is Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" He stole his main beat from "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie.
I would have to agree that this sort of sampling without consent is illegal. Of course, the Vanilla Ice case was very blatant.
-the Hun
It would be useful if the system could be used to filter instead of block, at least for the first few months. Perhaps, if there is not response to a challenge after 72 hours, and email could be redirected to a 'Spam' or 'Bulk' filder.
This way, If I get monthly newsletters from donotreply@... and I want to keep getting it, i can approve that email. After about 3 months of this type of filtering and I would probably have approved everything I want to receive. Then, I could turn it back to blocking instead of filtering.
-the Hun
Could a phone like this be used for making calls from my home network? I have a wireless access point and a cable modem. This phone would pay for itself very quickly if I could use it for long distance calls.
-the Hun
For less than $1700 I could buy another laptop, and set it up to do most of what that can do. Also, I dont have a a home security system, or climate control system to integrate it into, but I imagine a laptop could interface with those as well. For my entertainment center I could spend what I saved on a good universal remote and probably still have money left over.
-the Hun
Sony already makes a DVR built with Tivo technology. I imagine they will still use Tivo technology for a US release of the new product.
Adding a DVD burner is definitely a cool addition.
I have always wanted to watch the Leonid Meteor Shower, but unfortunately I live in Cleveland where we have two types of weather. Cloudy, and Cloudy with Rain.
It is very possible to label these groups as terrorists. I would also like to add the KKK to the list of domestic terrorist groups, but I dont think the entirety of any of these groups is composed of terrorists. The main difference that I see, is that here we can punish the individuals that carry out these destructive acts with our existing laws.
Many people who belong to these organizations like PETA have strong feelings about the rights of animals and such, but do not support the violent acts of more radical members of their groups. Here we can prosecute those members and have no need to destroy the entire group. This makes it hard to classify them as terrorist groups. It is akin to classifying all Afghanis as terrorists when only a radical faction attacked us.
-the Hun