What strikes me as weird is that in 1 day I went from having about 2,000 FoFs (friend of friends) on Orkut to have over 200,000 and I hadn't added any new connections myself so it came from someone I was connected to who had connected with someone else who was -too- connected.
At that point, ranking may actually be useful. I would rather not be considered to be ranking my friendships, but I wouldn't mind having more than one category (for instance, acquaintance, friend, family). Otherwise it is just too many to be useful.
Be glad you don't have my HDTV... I bought it from best buy and paid for the extra warranty. The power chip is broken and it cycles on/off/on/off repetitively. It's been into the repair shop 3 times over 2 months now and the guys can't seem to fix it for more than a day. Everyone scratches their head and says they've never seen that before.
Luckily my TiVo still works, but just TRY and read those menus on a 10" cheap monitor from across the living room:)
suspend/hibernate always worked well for me during that one or two days that I used the stock Windows install before repartitioning/replacing it.
However even a working hibernate can take a minute or two to fully restore, as it has to pull up to a GB of data off the hard drive, properly restart devices, and do a doublecheck of config. That means that on my laptop with 512MB RAM and Win2K it took almost as long to de-hibernate as it did to boot (Win2K has an awfully fast boot cycle).
Restoring a suspend is much quicker, but then again, suspend works (for me at least) on Linux just fine.
I personally am not happy about DRM BIOS in general, but having quick access to PIM data without a full boot sounds VERY nice, especially if it can be made multi-user. I can definitely see my grandparents willing to do that over having to go through the whole "scary" boot process.
Plus it gives you a way to leave the machine off, saving power, while still being able to have it quickly boot into an application that guests might want to use.
Is it a killer feature? Nope. Does DRM blow? Yep. Is it ironic in a funny way that someone is developing an Outlook compatible app that doesn't require you to run Windows because Microsoft is taking so long on their next version? Absolutely:)
You state that the end user won't even notice AFTER USING HTML as an example?
Let's go back a bit and look at the history of browsers implenting the HTML standards differently. Differing implementations can make a tremendous difference to end users and also (especially) to developers.
Oh I wasn't saying no one would support it, just me. I don't have a problem being a carnivore, but various slaughter/harvest practices definitely hit the cruel level. If it isn't necessary to do the freeze/thaw/boil routine, and who hasn't seen live lobsters at their grocery store, then why?
Yeah, I know, the water causing bubbles to act differently was a long shot.
You're probably right about the Irish version not being pasteurized, and so much the better. It definitely had a better and less metallic (only way I know to describe it) taste. And if I got some free cultures from it, it definitely didn't hurt (I brew my own concoctions, so they would have had plenty of company).
Combination of lack of pasteurization and better water makes a lot of sense on the taste bit. Strangely the Coca-cola tasted alot worse (almost like diet), so I'm thinking water was a strong player in both.
And I'd go back in a second... it plain SUCKED having to fly out the day the St.Patty's celebrations started.
Interestingly, in Dublin drinking from a standard Guinness pint glass at a number of pubs, I never saw the bubbles do anything but rise to form a terrific head. I've only seen the downward bubbles in the Guinness pint (which is a pretty standard size and shape) in the States.
The Guinness in Dublin tasted better, too, and I'm not the only one that thinks so. The most common answer is that the Guinness in the States is brewed in the UK from inferior water and the Guinness in Dublin is brewed from a much better source.
Perhaps only "bad" Guinness has the properties needed to float bubbles down?
Exactly. HBO is the perfect ground for such a series much like "Earth to the Moon" was for Apollo 13.
And Silmarillion wasn't painful for everyone. I haven't bothered with the modern stuff from Christopher Tolkien, but I had access to the Silmaril right after Hobbit and LOTR when I was a kid a couple of decades ago. All were doggeared copies of my Father's from the 70's or 60's. Most of Silmaril was in a decent form (unlike the following books that I skipped from most accounts) when it was decided to print it so not too much had to be done to get it in shape.
Because the poster is worried that the series may have a significant drop in quality due to bad producer decisions, much like what happened to ST after G. Roddenberry was no longer in direct creative control (which started happening shortly before he passed). Many ST fans felt that the ST franchise tried to become over-techie ("Jordions") and derivative after that.
It has nothing to do with the death of a creator, and the poster seems to have -liked- Roddenberry's direction for ST and disliked what happened after. In this case his passing is a milestone for show quality, much like we -may- be saying in 3-4 years about "boy I hope it's like Stargate -before- Atlantis".
Personally, I don't see why "Atlantis" would need to be another show. That's one of the things I like about SG1, it has handled the various twists and turns that other shows like to use as spinoffs -internally-. However, it seems pretty clear that the writers may be about to run out of steam based on this season. I like this season (last night being an exception) overall, but it a) HAS become more star trek-like in focus and b) I don't see where the logical conclusion of SG1 would go after this season if it wraps up the way it seems to be. In which case, all "Atlantis" would seem to me to be is a way to keep the franchise going after the first series is properly finished.
Hey SciFi... if you want to continue a franchise, why don't you go buy FireFly and kill off Atlantis, and anything similar to Tremors. It would be nice to have that series get their real conclusion and you might almost repair the damage done with Farscape's cancellation. Now -that- is an unrelated post.
The MMOG (RPG is sometimes a misnomer) will not reach saturation until there is a game that:
a) is not too expensive to preclude play by people who are cash poor (over $10 is too much to pay for alot of folks).
b) has enough programmed intelligence to allow suspension of disbelief during gameplay (that includes graphics, UI, "AI", lack of serious bugs, etc)
c) does not require one to play for dozens of hours per week or even a couple of hours every day just to "keep up" to have a level of enjoyment
d) converse of c) does not easily allow the game to become boring if you -do- play a large number of hours
e) runs on more than just Windows
So far, each of the above (with the possible exception of "B") has been reached, but no more than 2 in any one game that I've played. I have been trying MMOGs since the early days and have played 5 of them commercially (ie, I was paying for it).
So far I have a couple of old MUDs that I still play on occasion, but no MMOGs are currently installed anywhere in our house. Not because I wouldn't like to have one to play, but because so far there isn't one.
Neverwinter Nights as an MMORPG (the way it started out) would have been possible... large enough user base to get kickstarted AND it has portability outside of the online domain in the form of D&D (not a requirement, but awfully nice). I look forward to Warhammer online but it has far less mass appeal. The ideas behind Anarchy Online (I don't feel an MMOG has to be a tolkien-esque fantasy) were quite nice but the game engine itself had too many problems. There? No. Star Wars isn't my particular cup of tea genre-wise and while I could get over that it still seems to be the same basic "kill the MOB" type that AO became.
When a -good- MMO game does come, it won't matter if the market for -bad- MMO games is saturated, it will grow. It may be parasitic growth from the base of other MMO games, but that doesn't mean it won't be a good investment for the right company. Capitalist theory rules this beast.
Is it really so hard to defeat something like this? Sure, there aren't any products that do it now because it is such a niche market (not alot of breathalizers installed today), but once it is in every vehicle that will change.
Other drug users can scam most drug tests if they are done in privacy by swapping out samples. All you would probably need to defeat this would be a compressed can of "breath" (compressed without any additional chemicals, perhaps from a pump), either sampled from you before or if the machines aren't very discerning (and face it, they would have to be cheap to be installed in all -used- vehicles) not even from a person.
The only way this thing would work against people who -want- to defeat it would be to have a cop be present at each startup. Otherwise the very people who need to be monitored in such a fashion will be the ones who find ways around it.
And random rolling re-testing? Seriously, can you say hassle? Besides, if a friend is going to be willing to start the car because you're too drunk, maybe they deserve to ride with you (as long as your impact is with a tree).
I'm not pro drunk driving, but this thing is a bit invasive, no? What's next, having the computer in our car analyze our driving and if it detects drunken patterns like weaving it will announces such to the police (or better, just turn off your car while you're going:)?
Given that I know of plenty of people who barely can get a telephone line, can't get "real" cable (ie, must use satellite) and occasionally even have to pay to have a power line drawn, I'm not sure this is feasible.
Leaving even 1% of the homes unserved would be, well, a disservice. So far -no- utility has managed to get 100% local availability. Remember that we're not just talking about removing HDTV, but also land-line telephones.
A great idea in concept, in practice it would cost at least as much as the money that the HDTV spectrum would bring in -and- would put most ISPs out of business.
Agreed, which is why I recommended it be a fine, but that also implies (which I should have expounded on so that my original post directly stated the fact instead of allowing assumptions) that I think SPAM is the equivalent of theft, be it on a very small yet pervasive scale, and therefore SPAMming should be considered a crime and not a "market".
While I disapprove of taxes regulating markets, I definitely support fines regulating petty crime and I do consider SPAM a crime which has a very definite 2nd party victim. If SPAMmers only emailed themselves then it would be victimless and wouldn't need further regulation:), but that's not the case.
Problem with Libertarians is that you can't predict what they will oppose. I don't know of any Libertarians that specifically oppose this. Sure, we may dislike taxation in general, but this tax is not being done to expand government but rather to remove a parasitic business practice (remembering that we are paying for -our- email reception just like anyone else).
Naturally another Libertarian might see this and disagree with me, but that only means they disagree with the SPAM tax, not that -all- of us do. Gotta love those generalizations.
It would be better if this were considered a fine instead of a tax, but in the end it's the same in this case.
Even with "mega" corrected to be "giga", the statement 'can't take advantage of more than 4 megabytes (sic) of memory at a time.' is a fallacy.
Ever since the Pentium Pro the Intel line has been capable of 64GB of RAM due to it's 36bit memory path.
Can you make use of over 4GB without some ugly extensions that are reminiscent of using 2MB on a 286? No. Is that anywhere near the memory capacity of a 64bit path? No. Do either of those problems justify continuing the false statements about 4GB memory limits? No.
the 4GB limitation is as much a problem with the OS (in other words, without paging tricks you -are- limited to 4GB of RAM per process, but that's not a function of the CPU it is a programming item).
I'm all for Opterons and Athlons, but if they are superior tech, then they shouldn't need falsehoods to win, especially when the real truth is -almost- as bad as the FUD.
Note that I -never- advocated governmental price controls. I only suggested that the consumer act with some modicum of intelligence and make a decision that is based on more than getting the cheapest price. If Wal-Mart were to get big enough to qualify as a monopoly, I'd be happy to see that fight, but price controls hurt everyone (in the end they even hurt the industry they are meant to help, as in farm subsidies).
Your reason for shopping at Wal-Mart is perfectly valid if you can't find what you needed elsewhere. I've given Wal-Mart $750 for tires a couple of years ago because I was moving soon and needed a place that would sell the tires I needed (yes, it was a need, snow and mud are the 2 most common elements where I live now) as well as would service them no matter which part of the country I lived.
But for computers, TVs, health care products, etc and especially groceries (which is WM's newest market wedge) I specifically shop elsewhere, even it that elsewhere is simply going to the Super Target (the John Kerry of the retail world right now).
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What strikes me as weird is that in 1 day I went from having about 2,000 FoFs (friend of friends) on Orkut to have over 200,000 and I hadn't added any new connections myself so it came from someone I was connected to who had connected with someone else who was -too- connected.
At that point, ranking may actually be useful. I would rather not be considered to be ranking my friendships, but I wouldn't mind having more than one category (for instance, acquaintance, friend, family). Otherwise it is just too many to be useful.
Be glad you don't have my HDTV ... I bought it from best buy and paid for the extra warranty. The power chip is broken and it cycles on/off/on/off repetitively. It's been into the repair shop 3 times over 2 months now and the guys can't seem to fix it for more than a day. Everyone scratches their head and says they've never seen that before.
:)
Luckily my TiVo still works, but just TRY and read those menus on a 10" cheap monitor from across the living room
suspend/hibernate always worked well for me during that one or two days that I used the stock Windows install before repartitioning/replacing it.
:)
However even a working hibernate can take a minute or two to fully restore, as it has to pull up to a GB of data off the hard drive, properly restart devices, and do a doublecheck of config. That means that on my laptop with 512MB RAM and Win2K it took almost as long to de-hibernate as it did to boot (Win2K has an awfully fast boot cycle).
Restoring a suspend is much quicker, but then again, suspend works (for me at least) on Linux just fine.
I personally am not happy about DRM BIOS in general, but having quick access to PIM data without a full boot sounds VERY nice, especially if it can be made multi-user. I can definitely see my grandparents willing to do that over having to go through the whole "scary" boot process.
Plus it gives you a way to leave the machine off, saving power, while still being able to have it quickly boot into an application that guests might want to use.
Is it a killer feature? Nope. Does DRM blow? Yep. Is it ironic in a funny way that someone is developing an Outlook compatible app that doesn't require you to run Windows because Microsoft is taking so long on their next version? Absolutely
You state that the end user won't even notice AFTER USING HTML as an example?
Let's go back a bit and look at the history of browsers implenting the HTML standards differently. Differing implementations can make a tremendous difference to end users and also (especially) to developers.
Nah, you'd never see Coke and Pizza Hut advertised together for corporate reasons. Besides we all know that RC is the best.
Oh I wasn't saying no one would support it, just me. I don't have a problem being a carnivore, but various slaughter/harvest practices definitely hit the cruel level. If it isn't necessary to do the freeze/thaw/boil routine, and who hasn't seen live lobsters at their grocery store, then why?
Exactly. Interesting phenomenon but will absolutely NEVER support it as an industry practice. We're cruel enough to the tasty critters already! :)
Yeah, I know, the water causing bubbles to act differently was a long shot.
... it plain SUCKED having to fly out the day the St.Patty's celebrations started.
You're probably right about the Irish version not being pasteurized, and so much the better. It definitely had a better and less metallic (only way I know to describe it) taste. And if I got some free cultures from it, it definitely didn't hurt (I brew my own concoctions, so they would have had plenty of company).
Combination of lack of pasteurization and better water makes a lot of sense on the taste bit. Strangely the Coca-cola tasted alot worse (almost like diet), so I'm thinking water was a strong player in both.
And I'd go back in a second
Go for it. We'll download it and play it and if it is worthy of adoption we'll even help with the development. Nothing stopping you. Have fun.
Interestingly, in Dublin drinking from a standard Guinness pint glass at a number of pubs, I never saw the bubbles do anything but rise to form a terrific head. I've only seen the downward bubbles in the Guinness pint (which is a pretty standard size and shape) in the States.
The Guinness in Dublin tasted better, too, and I'm not the only one that thinks so. The most common answer is that the Guinness in the States is brewed in the UK from inferior water and the Guinness in Dublin is brewed from a much better source.
Perhaps only "bad" Guinness has the properties needed to float bubbles down?
Exactly. HBO is the perfect ground for such a series much like "Earth to the Moon" was for Apollo 13.
And Silmarillion wasn't painful for everyone. I haven't bothered with the modern stuff from Christopher Tolkien, but I had access to the Silmaril right after Hobbit and LOTR when I was a kid a couple of decades ago. All were doggeared copies of my Father's from the 70's or 60's. Most of Silmaril was in a decent form (unlike the following books that I skipped from most accounts) when it was decided to print it so not too much had to be done to get it in shape.
Hopefully the defendant will be small enough that another company like IBM or Sun can buy them and fund a real defense, quashing this thing now.
quote: "something easy to play and probably set in the 1980s."
:)
If it is "easy to play" it will NOT be reminiscent of the Intellivision
Sure, because we all know that private keys are never divulged.
So are your neighbors :)
... but doesn't that preclude the usage by Grandma?
WUSB better have a LOT better encryption scheme than WiFi
I sense a LOT of WUSB war-driving in the future if this takes off.
Because the poster is worried that the series may have a significant drop in quality due to bad producer decisions, much like what happened to ST after G. Roddenberry was no longer in direct creative control (which started happening shortly before he passed). Many ST fans felt that the ST franchise tried to become over-techie ("Jordions") and derivative after that.
... if you want to continue a franchise, why don't you go buy FireFly and kill off Atlantis, and anything similar to Tremors. It would be nice to have that series get their real conclusion and you might almost repair the damage done with Farscape's cancellation. Now -that- is an unrelated post.
It has nothing to do with the death of a creator, and the poster seems to have -liked- Roddenberry's direction for ST and disliked what happened after. In this case his passing is a milestone for show quality, much like we -may- be saying in 3-4 years about "boy I hope it's like Stargate -before- Atlantis".
Personally, I don't see why "Atlantis" would need to be another show. That's one of the things I like about SG1, it has handled the various twists and turns that other shows like to use as spinoffs -internally-. However, it seems pretty clear that the writers may be about to run out of steam based on this season. I like this season (last night being an exception) overall, but it a) HAS become more star trek-like in focus and b) I don't see where the logical conclusion of SG1 would go after this season if it wraps up the way it seems to be. In which case, all "Atlantis" would seem to me to be is a way to keep the franchise going after the first series is properly finished.
Hey SciFi
The MMOG (RPG is sometimes a misnomer) will not reach saturation until there is a game that:
... large enough user base to get kickstarted AND it has portability outside of the online domain in the form of D&D (not a requirement, but awfully nice). I look forward to Warhammer online but it has far less mass appeal. The ideas behind Anarchy Online (I don't feel an MMOG has to be a tolkien-esque fantasy) were quite nice but the game engine itself had too many problems. There? No. Star Wars isn't my particular cup of tea genre-wise and while I could get over that it still seems to be the same basic "kill the MOB" type that AO became.
a) is not too expensive to preclude play by people who are cash poor (over $10 is too much to pay for alot of folks).
b) has enough programmed intelligence to allow suspension of disbelief during gameplay (that includes graphics, UI, "AI", lack of serious bugs, etc)
c) does not require one to play for dozens of hours per week or even a couple of hours every day just to "keep up" to have a level of enjoyment
d) converse of c) does not easily allow the game to become boring if you -do- play a large number of hours
e) runs on more than just Windows
So far, each of the above (with the possible exception of "B") has been reached, but no more than 2 in any one game that I've played. I have been trying MMOGs since the early days and have played 5 of them commercially (ie, I was paying for it).
So far I have a couple of old MUDs that I still play on occasion, but no MMOGs are currently installed anywhere in our house. Not because I wouldn't like to have one to play, but because so far there isn't one.
Neverwinter Nights as an MMORPG (the way it started out) would have been possible
When a -good- MMO game does come, it won't matter if the market for -bad- MMO games is saturated, it will grow. It may be parasitic growth from the base of other MMO games, but that doesn't mean it won't be a good investment for the right company. Capitalist theory rules this beast.
Is it really so hard to defeat something like this? Sure, there aren't any products that do it now because it is such a niche market (not alot of breathalizers installed today), but once it is in every vehicle that will change.
:)?
Other drug users can scam most drug tests if they are done in privacy by swapping out samples. All you would probably need to defeat this would be a compressed can of "breath" (compressed without any additional chemicals, perhaps from a pump), either sampled from you before or if the machines aren't very discerning (and face it, they would have to be cheap to be installed in all -used- vehicles) not even from a person.
The only way this thing would work against people who -want- to defeat it would be to have a cop be present at each startup. Otherwise the very people who need to be monitored in such a fashion will be the ones who find ways around it.
And random rolling re-testing? Seriously, can you say hassle? Besides, if a friend is going to be willing to start the car because you're too drunk, maybe they deserve to ride with you (as long as your impact is with a tree).
I'm not pro drunk driving, but this thing is a bit invasive, no? What's next, having the computer in our car analyze our driving and if it detects drunken patterns like weaving it will announces such to the police (or better, just turn off your car while you're going
Given that I know of plenty of people who barely can get a telephone line, can't get "real" cable (ie, must use satellite) and occasionally even have to pay to have a power line drawn, I'm not sure this is feasible.
Leaving even 1% of the homes unserved would be, well, a disservice. So far -no- utility has managed to get 100% local availability. Remember that we're not just talking about removing HDTV, but also land-line telephones.
A great idea in concept, in practice it would cost at least as much as the money that the HDTV spectrum would bring in -and- would put most ISPs out of business.
Agreed, which is why I recommended it be a fine, but that also implies (which I should have expounded on so that my original post directly stated the fact instead of allowing assumptions) that I think SPAM is the equivalent of theft, be it on a very small yet pervasive scale, and therefore SPAMming should be considered a crime and not a "market".
:), but that's not the case.
While I disapprove of taxes regulating markets, I definitely support fines regulating petty crime and I do consider SPAM a crime which has a very definite 2nd party victim. If SPAMmers only emailed themselves then it would be victimless and wouldn't need further regulation
Problem with Libertarians is that you can't predict what they will oppose. I don't know of any Libertarians that specifically oppose this. Sure, we may dislike taxation in general, but this tax is not being done to expand government but rather to remove a parasitic business practice (remembering that we are paying for -our- email reception just like anyone else).
Naturally another Libertarian might see this and disagree with me, but that only means they disagree with the SPAM tax, not that -all- of us do. Gotta love those generalizations.
It would be better if this were considered a fine instead of a tax, but in the end it's the same in this case.
Even with "mega" corrected to be "giga", the statement 'can't take advantage of more than 4 megabytes (sic) of memory at a time.' is a fallacy.
Ever since the Pentium Pro the Intel line has been capable of 64GB of RAM due to it's 36bit memory path.
Can you make use of over 4GB without some ugly extensions that are reminiscent of using 2MB on a 286? No. Is that anywhere near the memory capacity of a 64bit path? No. Do either of those problems justify continuing the false statements about 4GB memory limits? No.
the 4GB limitation is as much a problem with the OS (in other words, without paging tricks you -are- limited to 4GB of RAM per process, but that's not a function of the CPU it is a programming item).
I'm all for Opterons and Athlons, but if they are superior tech, then they shouldn't need falsehoods to win, especially when the real truth is -almost- as bad as the FUD.
Sounds like you didn't watch the end of the mini-series.
True, still not the original role, but not what you described, either.
90 volts? That would fry some braces :)
Note that I -never- advocated governmental price controls. I only suggested that the consumer act with some modicum of intelligence and make a decision that is based on more than getting the cheapest price. If Wal-Mart were to get big enough to qualify as a monopoly, I'd be happy to see that fight, but price controls hurt everyone (in the end they even hurt the industry they are meant to help, as in farm subsidies).
Your reason for shopping at Wal-Mart is perfectly valid if you can't find what you needed elsewhere. I've given Wal-Mart $750 for tires a couple of years ago because I was moving soon and needed a place that would sell the tires I needed (yes, it was a need, snow and mud are the 2 most common elements where I live now) as well as would service them no matter which part of the country I lived.
But for computers, TVs, health care products, etc and especially groceries (which is WM's newest market wedge) I specifically shop elsewhere, even it that elsewhere is simply going to the Super Target (the John Kerry of the retail world right now).