I've done just under 2tb in a month before, I've heard of other people on the same internet plan as me (Big Time on New Zealand's Telecom, unlmited ADSL2+) before they took it away because of people like me.
Most I heard of was just shy of 3TB, this was on a horribly shaped connection too.
Why is this news?
This is news because if the US ISPs have their way, we'll be limited to approximately what, 0.37% of this per month?
2700 GB -> 5GB AT&T cap, 10GB theoretical cap by my ISP (cableone), etc etc.
About 1/3 of 1 percent of what your connection could use?
So in other words, the people selling us "Unlimited Broadband" would really like it if we would only use our connections about 2.6 hours a month (0.37% * 30 days =.111 days * 24 hrs = 2.6 hours).
Of course, my math is probably wrong. It's 4 AM, and harble bleeb SNARF.
It is the ISPs problem if they can't deliver the bandwidth they promise their customers.
Their business is data transferings so if they should rejoices peoples use their pipes to transfer datas.
Except the industry -- at least, in the US -- is nowhere near capable of handling 100% utilization by 100% of customers. Heck, I'd be surprised if they're ready for 100% utilization by even 10% of customers.
Like it or not, everyone's fat pipe is sold under two unspoken conditions: That you're not going to use it 24x7, and that those who vastly under utilize (grandmothers checking their email on DSL, for example) are going to subsidize the rest of us.
In theory, they'd be working on infrastructure to supplement the need, but in reality, well, buying hookers and yachts for lobbyists and politicians aren't cheap, you know.
The argument is not that the brain works by "maaagiiic" but that it's not ajust a more complicated example of current binary electronic computers - which is what all the pro-Kurzweil computer scientists posting here seem to think.
It's all very well to speculate, but if you start bringing in pseudo-scientific flawed logic, you simply cannot expect people to take your conclusions seriously.
But there's a postulate there borne in the realm of human elitism -- that it's too complex for us to understand. That it's somehow "special".
And who knows? Maybe we won't ever be able to understand the way the brain works, innately. Maybe there's a spot where things "just work". Maybe it is special. But from a detatched scientific view... it's not.
We know DNA is relatively simple -- at least, in comparison to what we get out of it. 50 million bytes for the brain, for example. There has to be some form of relatively simple framework that changes a pile of DNA into a human body and brain. There's no external forces specifically forcing each brain into a certain configuration (-Insert TV News Joke here-), therefore it has to be all included in the pile.
We also know it's possible to emulate at least parts of a brain. Specifically, a mouse brain. Emulating parts of a human brain isn't outside of the realm of possibility.
Emulating all of a human brain isn't that big of a leap from that.
Learning how to read the source code of DNA, to learn how something that simple creates something that complex, is also a worthy area of study. It could lead to some brilliant discoveries -- how to recognized flawed DNA, how to engineer biological constructs from whole cloth, how to deactivate specific traits in organisms, or insert new ones.
To handwave any attempts at research in these areas, to laugh at anyone trying to get from point C from our current X -- or even suggesting that getting there is possible -- is to do a disservice. To call it impossible, not because of the scientific merits, but because... well, because.
Maaagic.
Kurzweil's postulate in this field isn't that "brains and bodies are just fancy, squishy computers." His postulate is as we gain a greater understanding of biology, DNA, et cetera, Medical Research is becoming more like Information Technology. We no longer "plug in stuff and see if it cures cancer" -- we are starting to understand things well enough that we can actually engineer cures, instead of relying on lucky accidents. (His example given was Viagra, actually -- Viagra was originally a drug for something else, but the better well known side effects were discovered by some of the test subjects.)
And Information Technology is affected by Moore's Law. So in 20 years, the computing power required to do, say, a brain emulation, might not seem so far fetched.
(He infamously suggests all technology is affected by Moore's Law, when you zoom out the graph. That's the singularity -- when we hit a point where we can't keep up.)
>>>we have what amounts to a protest over the cost of the original book...
Bullshit. It's theft of another person's labor. Equivalent to if you spend a year of your life as an engineer, but you only get half the pay. The other half gets distributed among thieves claiming credit for your work, even though they didn't do a damn thing. They are parasites... nothing more.
No, the parasites are the ones who change the edition of the book every 6-12 months, making the used book market nonexistant and allowing for inflation like this (usually in the realm of kickbacks to teachers/schools to "encourage" them to cycle out the editions on command).
$225 list price for a goddamned math book? Apparently selling textbooks allows for some really high quality drugs.
Let me interject real quick with the statement that I do not intend to suggest any shenanigans -- I just thought it was really unusual. In a good way. I've never heard of a college designing, testing, and printing their own textbooks -- and at vastly better prices ($9 instead of $225) to boot! And that's assuming you don't just want to download the PDF for your iPad or whatnot.
Is this a slashdot story, or someone's twitter page? At least some kind of objective summary would be nice, other than "Lul Kurzweil, here, a link, he stoopid!"
But before I just hit preview and go, lets take a look at the article itself. Aaand, holy crap, the post is verbatim from the article.
Kurzweil's effective claim is "There's only so much data in the DNA. The brain is about 50 million bytes. If we can reverse engineer the process used to turn those 50 million bytes into a brain, we can then reverse engineer the brain."
Seems logical - and even though the endpoint might not be "brain on a chip" it might be "oh, there's a flaw in the DNA here that's causing the hypothalamus to be malformed, lets start checking for that and maybe fixing it in the womb." There are many, many scientists that are trying to puzzle out this "source code" for that very reason. It's a perfectly valid point of study.
Kurzweil is a futurist. His scientific area of study is not "You should do X Y and Z to get to points A B and C." His area of study is "Scientists are working on X, which may lead someday to Z, and might bring us technology C." There's an important difference there, which I always find amusing when scientists and the anti-singulatarians start hooting, "he forgot Y, A and B!"
His math all points to Technology C and beyond being really amazing, but that's besides the point. His area of study is not "every technology field ever", but rather "this is where things are trending". People mix the two up, sometimes intentionally, and hoot hoot hoot, Y A B.
Anyway. Back to the article. The rebuttal in the article is "We cannot derive the brain from the protein sequences underlying it; the sequences are insufficient, as well, because the nature of their expression is dependent on the environment and the history of a few hundred billion cells, each plugging along interdependently."
In other words, It's too complex to do. It's maaagiiic. (Feel free to insert hand wiggling here.)
He forgot Y, A and B!
See, the brain might have a source code, one that's remarkably small and turns into something really complex, but that doesn't mean anything cause... maaaagic. And you can't understand magic, right? Everyone knows that something that's so complex that it seems impossible to understand should never be attempted. Worthless endeavor. Everyone knows that. Right?... Maagggiiiiccc~~~
The fact of the matter is, DNA is source code. For a system we don't fully understand, one that's remarkably complex, but ultimately, DNA, even our DNA, is just data. We can understand, change, manipulate, and create data.
To treat it all as magic -- as something that we will just never be able to understand -- is to do a disservice to centuries of scientists, of the past and the future.
Cops: "We confiscated your external HDD, only it's encrypted. Give us your password."
SuspecT: "No."
Cops: "Passwords are property and thus you have to, as it's part of the HDD."
Suspect: "I claim 5th amendment rights."
Cops: "We have a Warrant for the seizure and search of this HDD, and you're blocking us from doing it. Therefore, you can rot in jail until you give up and give us what we want."
Um, yeah. IANAL, but this is called "obstruction of justice". If the police have a warrant that permits them to search your hard disk, and you try to prevent them, that's a crime. You can't be compelled to testify against yourself, but you have to permit the police to access your property if they have a legitimate warrant.
Yes, and that's the prescedent. Is it "You have to give us the password, as it's part of the property we have seized" or is it "You can claim 5th amendment rights since it's testifying against yourself." ?
What if it's NOT encrypted, and that's just noise left over from stress testing the drive with random read-writes? How exactly would justice be served by holding that guy in jail? Apologies if you were being sarcastic.
The point would be to hold him in jail. As we've seen with WikiLeaks, the US still fully believes in jailing political opponents. They'd let the WikiLeaks guy rot in jail for the rest of time -- assuming they didn't just kill him -- if they could.
Not really sure that justice was served here but the guy really was a first-rate dickhead.
I like the prescedent.
Cops: "We confiscated your external HDD, only it's encrypted. Give us your password."
SuspecT: "No."
Cops: "Passwords are property and thus you have to, as it's part of the HDD."
Suspect: "I claim 5th amendment rights."
Cops: "We have a Warrant for the seizure and search of this HDD, and you're blocking us from doing it. Therefore, you can rot in jail until you give up and give us what we want."
I had a CycloDS for my DS, but your DSi's firmware blocked it from working. This page reminded me to look, and sure enough, I can now buy a nice Acekard 2i for like $15 and/or a Supercrad DStwo for about $35 that does things your console should do natively (such as GBA and SNES emulation), both of which use the same 16 GB Micro SDHC card that my CycloDS uses, all of which will work with my nice Nintendo DSiXL.
Of course, since I own physical copies of all the games I put on my flash cart, it's all ethically sound, if not legally unassailable. Fortunately for me, I am much more concerned with living ethically, if not legally, especially when in regards to stupid, anti-consumer laws like the ones that would outlaw this sort of thing. Although Nintendo might be screwed even in that case, because "Jailbreaking" a mobile device is now legal in the US. Since my DS is a mobile device, and the Acekard / DStwo are methods of "jailbreaking," -- i.e., running unapproved software -- well, seems to me the much loved DMCA that Nintendo would no doubt use to shut these things down in the US... wouldn't actually shut them down.
So thank you, Nintendo. Thank you for reminding me to look for a DSi compatible flash cart, and reminding me I need to do my part to support small development studios like the Supercard and Acekard teams.
Just like how the "real researchers" laughed their ass off at the human genome project?
The human genome project was easy to scale up, the data was right in front of them, it was just a question of crunching it. And we still haven't a firm grasp of the complex interactions between genetic information, far from it.
Unlike such a project, we don't have the data in front of us to create intelligence, it would be as though there was considerable debate over the existence of genes in the first place. And even if we did, you'd still need an almost perfect physics engine to be able to do whatever you wanted, pretty much down to the molecular level. I'm not saying it will never happen, it probably will, but not for scores of generations at minimum. In the meantime you and your buddies can get a similar level of enjoyment with the abovementioned paper and pencil. I wouldn't see it as competition for online games, any more than I'd see football as competition for online games.
I'm not talking about a simulated world or whatnot. I'm specifically talking about using an algorithm to create outlines of NPC interactions in a RPG, which would later be used by a professional video game scriptwriter to flesh out scenarios.
By creating something like this, you could set up 50 - 100 semi-unique simulated personalities and give them semi-realistic responses to stimuli, such as the PC turning traitor or the big bad surrendering unexpectedly.
I suppose if you wanted to get in on this field early, teaching a computer how to write short fantasy novels would be your best bet. 10,000 words, or somesuch.
You genuinely have no clue what you're talking about. The level of AI needed to write a comprehensible, original novel is so far beyond our grasp at the moment that it may as well be impossible. We don't fully understand the bare concept of intelligence, let alone are able to simulate it. So no, you won't be seeing human level AIs in 15-20 years, or even a decent simulacrum thereof, if you said that to a real AI researcher he'd laugh his ass off at you.
Just like how the "real researchers" laughed their ass off at the human genome project?
Again, not talking about real AI here. Just talking about procedurally generated dialog trees and the like. Glorified chat-bots in order to facilitate the writing of large swaths of text really quickly.
Ask again in 20 years when the idea of having a true AI (or 100) in a computer RPG will be possible
20 years? Try 2000, you'd need a holodeck for what you're talking about.
Well, first off, I tend towards believing Kurzweil as being right (or at least close), which would put the technology closer to 20-80 years out. Is he right? Who knows? You're missing the point if you're asking that question -- the point isn't "are we going to see a singularity" but rather "are we going to be surprised by future tech when we're old and retired and think we know better?"
Secondly, the actual media/UI is irrelevant. We don't need holographics, a monitor would work just fine -- and we're far more likely to get consumer level AR/VR before any form of hardlight holographics anyway.
See, we're really reaching the real plateau where graphics cards are running out of steam -- a $50 card can still run all new games at mid/high graphics, and it's becoming prohibitively expensive to make "ultra high" graphics on a development side. *Something* has to change, either new tools for game development or a new interface. Myself, I believe we're ripe for a new interface -- VR of some sort being the likely candidate -- which will allow us to put that same graphics power back to good use. Perhaps monitors with a similar 3D system as Nintendo's 3DS or something will appear in the meantime, but that almost seems like a non-starter outside of handhelds.
But no, interface isn't the problem. The real problem we're discussing right now is the lack of AI/AGI, but even a nice procedurally generated content generation system would do what we want.
I think the ultimate middle ground that we'll start seeing in 5-15 years is Computer Augmented Scriptwriting (CAScripting) -- designers creating a not-quite-turing level pseudo-chat bot that will help them write large amounts of scenarios very quickly. Then this hypothetical future-BioWare would have a human script editing team go back and edit the scripts for flow.
By creating something like this, you could set up 50 - 100 semi-unique simulated personalities and give them semi-realistic responses to stimuli, such as the PC turning traitor or the big bad surrendering unexpectedly.
I suppose if you wanted to get in on this field early, teaching a computer how to write short fantasy novels would be your best bet. 10,000 words, or somesuch.
While the PC-xbox-what have you market may have hijacked the term "role playing game" for its own profit, it doesn't represent any actual role playing, which is where you sit around a table with your friends and pretend to be a someone or something else to whatever depth you feel comfortable. And until you have near reality physics engines and near human AI, as well as full facial/vocal/auditory interaction, you won't get that (really really fun) experience either.
Um, wow. Welcome to 20 years ago.
Seriously guys, we're limited by the technology. There's a reason CRPGs and JRPGs are what they are -- it's just not feasible to make the kind of experiences you are asking for. Consider Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that have hundreds of thousands of pages of text. Even they feel "railroady" at times. You can't join the villain, after all, because they didn't have an extra 5 years to write, script, draw, program, etc that scenario and the 500 sub-scenarios involved.
Ask again in 20 years when the idea of having a true AI (or 100) in a computer RPG will be possible, and we're seeing "The Elder Scrolls 8" with actual open ended, emergent gameplay. When you don't have to have a human writing each line of text, then the ability to "role play" becomes a lot more feasable.
Wait, Activision? They're still in business? I would have thought Robert Kotick would have ran them into the ground by now. God, he's getting slow in his old age.
What's that? He's trying to turn Battle.Net into "Facebook for Gamers?" He's going to require everyone playing WoW to use their real names on the official forums (and in the in game friends' list), so that the next time you piss off some mentally unhinged social reject you can figure that out by the knife embedded in your front door and the creepy breathing phone calls at 3 AM?
Ah, nevermind, he's right on track for running the company into the ground, he's just going slow so he can show off.
It wasn't just 270's and 280's. I've seen at least 3 GX620's with bad caps and one 745 with bad caps. Ah the tickets "User calling in with amber power light. No POST"
Dell GTS tech (Twin Falls 2006-2009) here. Capacitors do die, occasionally, even good (or at least, "as good as cheapest maker makes") ones. The GX270/280 (and yes, very early 620s) just had specific capacitors from a specific supplier that were made incorrectly.
One story I heard was that the company that made them stole the process from another company, and screwed it up. Another telling of the story had something to do with the capacitors being made with incorrect/impure water.
Regardless, this was a lifetime ago as far as tech stuff goes. I'm very surprised that it's being brought back up now.
Why eliminate them completely, why simply not raise the price until it's profitable if some consumer want them?
Because they know in 5, 10 years their network will easily be able to handle any data usage -- presuming they can stop buying their execs yachts and cocaine -- even while the advent of stuff like streaming HD Netflix Movies will send data usage through the roof. By getting us weaned off unlimited data NOW, they will make much more money LATER when everyone is hitting a paltry 2 gig cap.
Whenever you have a pay-per-minute system, you eventually see it shift to a pay-per-month system, and the price drops. We've seen it in ISPs, MMORPGs, Long Distance, and Cellphones. In each case, the companies remain profitable, but no where near as much if they were able to keep the pay-per-minute scheme going. But market forces force the companies to give customers a pay-per-month system over X number of years, which seems to be where consumers are happy enough.
Data plans on cellphones are evolving to that point. The next step would be the price dropping like a rock, which is the "part 2" of the market forces mess above. The cellphone companies are (probably illegally, but it's the US, so whatever) conspiring to price fix their market by simply dropping the rates en mass so that customers can't just flee AT&T for Verizon or Sprint or whoever has a sane plan, since they're all dropping the plans.
But this isn't about money. At least, not short turn.
It's about forcibly preventing that evolution so they can ride the wave further on out. Their networks are woefully insufficient, data usage is going up at a rate only Raymond Kurzweil expected, and it's only the start of the exponential growth (helloooo iPad HD Netflix App)... But all of these pale in comparison to the hope that they can stop the evolution of their market.... Because if they can get people used to the idea of $25/2GB data plans that sound ok now, but in 5 years would get you maybe a movie or 4 streamed before the obscene data charges kick in... $25 is going to look like chump change. Remember that these are the assholes who thought ahead far enough to make the web buttons, which load just enough on your data plans to cost you a few cents, stupidly easy to press. They make millions from it.
If they can get the average user -- or the average for their network -- to spend more than $6 a month in overage fees, this whole mess becomes hugely profitable for them. IF they can get it to $7, $10, or even $15, it's even better.
I am a religious freak. And I do not oppose adult stem cell research at all. Hey, my nephew probably owes his life to it. I do oppose embryonic stem cell research, because it creates a demand for dead babies, which I have a huge moral problem with.
So you oppose fertility clinics, then? Cause they create a *lot* of extra embryos and stem cells (the random junk DNA that you call "dead babies") and most of them are either destroyed outright, or allowed to grow until they die on their own due to genetic defects and the like.
What gets me is instead of using these junk embryos that are literally thrown out with the wash, we have to allow years and immeasurable promises of medical miracles due to a bunch of people terrified of pissing off Santa Claus. Er, sorry, "God".
Is the PSP in trouble? Yes. But it's at the end of it's lifespan anyways. TGS or E32011 will bring the PSP2, and Sony isn't stupid, they know what they need to build this time around.
Basically, at this point they're going to have to do 3D with the PSP2. Anything less than that is going to leave Nintendo way, way in the lead. The PSP was a stalled, almost dead platform before, now Nintendo's just about lapped them.
Maybe they could pull an Apple and just have the PSP2 have an iPad sized screen, but that would be incredibly expensive, I can't see them doing that.
Nintendo had a huge lead in handheld gaming. The PSP and PSPgo were supposed to close the gap, and all it did was inspire Nintendo to actually get off their asses and try for the first time in decades.
And for that, I myself thank Sony for being the sacrificial lamb.
As for the Wiihd? You do realize that would be competing with the Ps4/Xbox 720 right?
And what will the PS4/XBox720 bring to the table, other than a cheap Wiimote knockoff each and slightly tweaked graphics?
We're at the plateau here, guys. The Wii can do "good enough" graphics for most games. The PS3 and 360 can do better, granted, but as Yahtzee puts it -- that puts the development cost a few years and a few million bucks on the wrong side of uncomfortable.
The Wii2 or whatever will have good enough graphics -- probably PS3/360 level. But here's the important thing -- it will have them right around the time price that the development resources for the PS3/360 level of graphics drops like a brick, because the PS3/XBox3's development studios will drive the cost down of the older development tech.
And due to years of constant research and player testing, it will have vastly superior motion control than the other 2 -- Things like Motion+ or whatever will be built in to the Wiimote2.
You know all those gimmicky games that fat, neckbearded trolls on Kotaku and the like love to bitch about? Those are market research. Nintendo's figuring out what works and what doesn't, so they can perfect it. I have no doubt that there are helpful hints in the SDK and the various kits given to developers saying "This works best with X amount of leeway when reading the player's buttonpresses."
But lets step back to the graphics. At the PS3 point of graphics, well, are you really going to notice much of a difference between the PS3 and, well, anything that comes next?
On games that don't take 5 years to make and $100 to buy?
Even the poster child for graphical superiority this gen -- Final Fantasy 13 -- is the last of it's kind. SE has said flat out they aren't doing that mess again. FF13 being a festering pile of crap gameplay wise -- note a pattern -- probably has something to do with it.
I guess my point is an engaging experience is the new battlefield, that's why you are seeing Microsoft and Sony playing a desperate game of blatant catchup. If this wasn't important, they'd at least wait until next generation to do it. Instead they're honestly expecting people to spend hundreds of dollars to pick up their Wiimote ripoffs.
Nintendo shifted the game entirely, making the Microsoft and Sony advantages weigh them down.
You couldn't get away with a game that looked like Super Mario Galaxy on the PS3 or 360 no matter how fun it was -- certain genres like SRPG notwithstanding -- it'd be "too kiddy". There's an unspoken requirement for the 360 and PS3 games to hit a certain graphical complexity, at the cost of development time, gameplay, et cetera. Nintendo, the "kiddy console", doesn't have that albatross.
Nintendo has Sony and Microsoft by their graphics cards and is pushing the boot down.
The wiser people at Microsoft and Sony are pissing themselves right now.
The 3DS is better in literally every stat than the PSP, even the PSPgo. Better graphics, better screen, bigger data files (2GB max at launch opposed to 1.8GB UMDs), better input (analog stick, dpad, AND touch), better everything.
Nintendo spent a time with weaker graphics to perfect a "gimmick", and once it became cheap to increase the graphics, did.
Meanwhile, on the "big boy stage", both of the other big 3 are busy trying to desperately imitate the "gimmick" of motion control that they spent the past few years mocking Nintendo for doing. Meanwhile, Nintendo's perfecting it.
It's cheap, from an IP standpoint, to add more graphical power. You don't really need to research it, for example.
And now, it's cheap from a hardware standpoint, too.
That 8 bit chiptune version of the Jaws Theme you hear is Nintendo, stalking Sony and Microsoft's lunch.
The Wii3D or whatever their next console is going to be is going to do the same thing the 3DS did to the PSP, to the PS3 and the 360. Take a gimmick they have perfected, perhaps add another gimmick, but increase the graphics and remove the one advantage the other two have.
There was never any doubt about the authenticity of the videos - the military admitted they were real. What they argued was that the videos didn't show the context in which there had been combat nearby.
Now, how nearby combat affects whether you can shoot at people retrieving the wounded without violating the Geneva Conventions is a different question. What is very clear, though, is that this is a small taste of what the Iraq War really looks like, and that some soldiers under the sort of combat pressure end up thinking along the lines of "Anyone who runs is an insurgent. Anyone who doesn't run is a well-disciplined insurgent."
Don't you remember? Lord High Glorious Leader King Bush the 2nd decreed that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "t'err'sts", and by definition, anyone we're at war with is a "t'err'st". Therefore, there were no violations of the human rights given in the Geneva Conventions, as our targets aren't humans.
Even though they later turned out to not be t'err'sts, upon firing upon them they became t'err'sts, at least temporarily, and that makes everything A-OK!
No, I don't believe this for a second either. In sane, rational times we could put the "Saddam" check on it -- "If Saddam Hussein tried to say this, would we use it as evidence against his administration to help justify an embargo / invasion?" Well, yes, we probably would.
But we do not live in sane, rational times -- in sane, rational times, George Bush Jr and a host of treasonous war criminals in his administration would be in the Hague right now undergoing war crimes trials. Instead, we have to be "bipartisan", which is bubblespeek for "let the Republicans do what they want".
Eventually, doctors will just start writing please on all their lab request forms and the hospital will be back where it started.
If the doctors were thinking ahead, they'd get some stamps or stencils or stationary with the word "please" already there. And then complain to the management every single time they didn't get done.
Of course, this will end when a customer complains about a delayed blood test...
Here in Japan, when we jailbroke our iPhones for tethering, on an "unlimited" plan, the CEO of the carrier made a public statement saying that unlimited wasn't really unlimited. If you use more than 300GB per month, you get a speed bump. I wasn't aware that it was even physically possible to use 300GB per month!
But that's OK, no need to worry about going over the cap. We also have the device marketed as the Pocket WiFi. A small little WiFi/3G router. Pop it out, turn it on, and 5 people can connect to the 'net with a 3G connection (HSPA). Unlimited. For real. And probably considerably faster than most DSL lines in the U.S.
Why in the world are you guys still living with 1.5Mbps DSL, 2GB capped data plans on 3G, and all the other crap I read about!? Even the elderly in Japan don't use that stuff. And we're not even Korean!:-P (And no, please don't give me the "last mile" joke. I live in Hokkaido, which is the boonies. I've got 100Mbps fiber to my home, and decent 3G coverage too. And no, it's not because our cell service started late in the game so we only had to build out, not build new. Our mobile phone networks have changed from Analog to CDMA to 3G over the past years. We're ready to finish phasing out 2G this year, as 4G has pretty much coverage in metropolitan areas, and will likely be built out soon too.)
The market in the US is vastly different.
The ISPs are vastly oversold. It's not even remotely funny. I worked for a small mom and pop one in Yakima, WA for 4 years. I do not know the pipe we had, but I know if 100% of our customers were using 100% of their guaranteed bandwidth 24/7, we'd NEVER be able to meet those needs. Ever. No ISP could.
We were counting on "the grandmothers" checking email once every few hours and that's IT. In a way, the no-or-low use customers subsidize every customer on Bittorrent. And the number of Bittorrent -- and Netflix, and Pandora, and... the high use users are multiplying, exponentially.
Now, you may think this is just because we were a smaller ISP. You'd be wrong. The bigger ISPs had ISPs like us as customers -- and they were playing the same shell game. Selling us 50Mbps, expecting us to use 20 except during peak hours. That kind of thing.
There is, of course, no regulation in this at all, out side of "free market forces" -- which is US codeword for "Let the Buyer Beware" or, perhaps more negatively, "The cons get away with what they can get suckers to buy."
There are other forces at work, of course. Quite a few of these networks aren't getting upgraded due to the general overpriced network components (and labor, and perquisite bribes, and the like) in the US -- I was told once that it takes an ISP 20 years to pay off the fiber used to wire a single neighborhood. You say boonies, but... some of our boonies are bigger than your entire country.
We're not talking last mile, we're talking "last hundred miles." A lot of these areas are just too expensive to be upgraded.
But there's another more primal force here, of course -- simple greed.
Why would AT&T offer 100Mbit DSL connections right now, when they can't really handle it... but also when they can sell 5Mbit connections for the same price, more or less, while offering 100Mbit "business class" DSL connections for an absolutely obscene markup?
The second they start offering 100Mbit consumer connections, market forces will cause the prices of 100Mbit and the ones under it to crater. If they simply never offer it... said market forces won't happen. And since the US has built in monopolies on the infrastructure (the fiber, the cable wires, etc) despite the government helping pay for them... In theory, nothing will ever change.
The Cellphone Modem problem is the same trick, only we played this one before. Back in the day, you'd pay per minute/hour for the internet. This was eventually fought off as other ISPs offered pay per day, and pay per month account
i'm looking at the Apple site right now. cleared cache and it I can still purchase any 3G iPad with $30 unlimited plan.
It was not available yesterday. The block of text with the "buy 3G" "Buy 32" or whatnot was just gone.
The $30 unlimited plan, well, you have to sign up on the iPad itself. If you purchased an iPad 3G today, you'd get it in a few weeks, long past the cutoff date for buying Unlimited Wireless.
Yeah, that would be too awesome. I'd love an iPhone with a iPad-like Data plan, but it won't happen.
I'd like to point out that when I said this, I did not intend for AT&T to take it as an excuse to do the complete bass-ackwards thing and nerf the iPad plan. Sorry everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
I've done just under 2tb in a month before, I've heard of other people on the same internet plan as me (Big Time on New Zealand's Telecom, unlmited ADSL2+) before they took it away because of people like me.
Most I heard of was just shy of 3TB, this was on a horribly shaped connection too.
Why is this news?
This is news because if the US ISPs have their way, we'll be limited to approximately what, 0.37% of this per month?
2700 GB -> 5GB AT&T cap, 10GB theoretical cap by my ISP (cableone), etc etc.
About 1/3 of 1 percent of what your connection could use?
So in other words, the people selling us "Unlimited Broadband" would really like it if we would only use our connections about 2.6 hours a month (0.37% * 30 days = .111 days * 24 hrs = 2.6 hours).
Of course, my math is probably wrong. It's 4 AM, and harble bleeb SNARF.
It is the ISPs problem if they can't deliver the bandwidth they promise their customers.
Their business is data transferings so if they should rejoices peoples use their pipes to transfer datas.
Except the industry -- at least, in the US -- is nowhere near capable of handling 100% utilization by 100% of customers. Heck, I'd be surprised if they're ready for 100% utilization by even 10% of customers.
Like it or not, everyone's fat pipe is sold under two unspoken conditions: That you're not going to use it 24x7, and that those who vastly under utilize (grandmothers checking their email on DSL, for example) are going to subsidize the rest of us.
In theory, they'd be working on infrastructure to supplement the need, but in reality, well, buying hookers and yachts for lobbyists and politicians aren't cheap, you know.
The argument is not that the brain works by "maaagiiic" but that it's not ajust a more complicated example of current binary electronic computers - which is what all the pro-Kurzweil computer scientists posting here seem to think.
It's all very well to speculate, but if you start bringing in pseudo-scientific flawed logic, you simply cannot expect people to take your conclusions seriously.
But there's a postulate there borne in the realm of human elitism -- that it's too complex for us to understand. That it's somehow "special".
And who knows? Maybe we won't ever be able to understand the way the brain works, innately. Maybe there's a spot where things "just work". Maybe it is special. But from a detatched scientific view... it's not.
We know DNA is relatively simple -- at least, in comparison to what we get out of it. 50 million bytes for the brain, for example. There has to be some form of relatively simple framework that changes a pile of DNA into a human body and brain. There's no external forces specifically forcing each brain into a certain configuration (-Insert TV News Joke here-), therefore it has to be all included in the pile.
We also know it's possible to emulate at least parts of a brain. Specifically, a mouse brain. Emulating parts of a human brain isn't outside of the realm of possibility.
Emulating all of a human brain isn't that big of a leap from that.
Learning how to read the source code of DNA, to learn how something that simple creates something that complex, is also a worthy area of study. It could lead to some brilliant discoveries -- how to recognized flawed DNA, how to engineer biological constructs from whole cloth, how to deactivate specific traits in organisms, or insert new ones.
To handwave any attempts at research in these areas, to laugh at anyone trying to get from point C from our current X -- or even suggesting that getting there is possible -- is to do a disservice. To call it impossible, not because of the scientific merits, but because... well, because.
Maaagic.
Kurzweil's postulate in this field isn't that "brains and bodies are just fancy, squishy computers." His postulate is as we gain a greater understanding of biology, DNA, et cetera, Medical Research is becoming more like Information Technology. We no longer "plug in stuff and see if it cures cancer" -- we are starting to understand things well enough that we can actually engineer cures, instead of relying on lucky accidents. (His example given was Viagra, actually -- Viagra was originally a drug for something else, but the better well known side effects were discovered by some of the test subjects.)
And Information Technology is affected by Moore's Law. So in 20 years, the computing power required to do, say, a brain emulation, might not seem so far fetched.
(He infamously suggests all technology is affected by Moore's Law, when you zoom out the graph. That's the singularity -- when we hit a point where we can't keep up.)
>>>we have what amounts to a protest over the cost of the original book...
Bullshit. It's theft of another person's labor. Equivalent to if you spend a year of your life as an engineer, but you only get half the pay. The other half gets distributed among thieves claiming credit for your work, even though they didn't do a damn thing. They are parasites... nothing more.
No, the parasites are the ones who change the edition of the book every 6-12 months, making the used book market nonexistant and allowing for inflation like this (usually in the realm of kickbacks to teachers/schools to "encourage" them to cycle out the editions on command).
$225 list price for a goddamned math book? Apparently selling textbooks allows for some really high quality drugs.
Having said that, note that the article submitter's name first comes up on Google as a Math Professor in Washington State who teaches Calculus 3. Even more amusing is the fact that Whitman's Math Department uses Lulu to sell their own line of College math books.
Let me interject real quick with the statement that I do not intend to suggest any shenanigans -- I just thought it was really unusual. In a good way. I've never heard of a college designing, testing, and printing their own textbooks -- and at vastly better prices ($9 instead of $225) to boot! And that's assuming you don't just want to download the PDF for your iPad or whatnot.
Is this a slashdot story, or someone's twitter page? At least some kind of objective summary would be nice, other than "Lul Kurzweil, here, a link, he stoopid!"
But before I just hit preview and go, lets take a look at the article itself. Aaand, holy crap, the post is verbatim from the article.
Kurzweil's effective claim is "There's only so much data in the DNA. The brain is about 50 million bytes. If we can reverse engineer the process used to turn those 50 million bytes into a brain, we can then reverse engineer the brain."
Seems logical - and even though the endpoint might not be "brain on a chip" it might be "oh, there's a flaw in the DNA here that's causing the hypothalamus to be malformed, lets start checking for that and maybe fixing it in the womb." There are many, many scientists that are trying to puzzle out this "source code" for that very reason. It's a perfectly valid point of study.
Kurzweil is a futurist. His scientific area of study is not "You should do X Y and Z to get to points A B and C." His area of study is "Scientists are working on X, which may lead someday to Z, and might bring us technology C." There's an important difference there, which I always find amusing when scientists and the anti-singulatarians start hooting, "he forgot Y, A and B!"
His math all points to Technology C and beyond being really amazing, but that's besides the point. His area of study is not "every technology field ever", but rather "this is where things are trending". People mix the two up, sometimes intentionally, and hoot hoot hoot, Y A B.
Anyway. Back to the article. The rebuttal in the article is "We cannot derive the brain from the protein sequences underlying it; the sequences are insufficient, as well, because the nature of their expression is dependent on the environment and the history of a few hundred billion cells, each plugging along interdependently."
In other words, It's too complex to do. It's maaagiiic. (Feel free to insert hand wiggling here.)
He forgot Y, A and B!
See, the brain might have a source code, one that's remarkably small and turns into something really complex, but that doesn't mean anything cause... maaaagic. And you can't understand magic, right? Everyone knows that something that's so complex that it seems impossible to understand should never be attempted. Worthless endeavor. Everyone knows that. Right? ... Maagggiiiiccc~~~
The fact of the matter is, DNA is source code. For a system we don't fully understand, one that's remarkably complex, but ultimately, DNA, even our DNA, is just data. We can understand, change, manipulate, and create data.
To treat it all as magic -- as something that we will just never be able to understand -- is to do a disservice to centuries of scientists, of the past and the future.
I like the prescedent.
Cops: "We confiscated your external HDD, only it's encrypted. Give us your password."
SuspecT: "No."
Cops: "Passwords are property and thus you have to, as it's part of the HDD."
Suspect: "I claim 5th amendment rights."
Cops: "We have a Warrant for the seizure and search of this HDD, and you're blocking us from doing it. Therefore, you can rot in jail until you give up and give us what we want."
Um, yeah. IANAL, but this is called "obstruction of justice". If the police have a warrant that permits them to search your hard disk, and you try to prevent them, that's a crime. You can't be compelled to testify against yourself, but you have to permit the police to access your property if they have a legitimate warrant.
Yes, and that's the prescedent. Is it "You have to give us the password, as it's part of the property we have seized" or is it "You can claim 5th amendment rights since it's testifying against yourself." ?
What if it's NOT encrypted, and that's just noise left over from stress testing the drive with random read-writes? How exactly would justice be served by holding that guy in jail? Apologies if you were being sarcastic.
The point would be to hold him in jail. As we've seen with WikiLeaks, the US still fully believes in jailing political opponents. They'd let the WikiLeaks guy rot in jail for the rest of time -- assuming they didn't just kill him -- if they could.
Withhold a password, go to jail.
Not really sure that justice was served here but the guy really was a first-rate dickhead.
I like the prescedent.
Cops: "We confiscated your external HDD, only it's encrypted. Give us your password."
SuspecT: "No."
Cops: "Passwords are property and thus you have to, as it's part of the HDD."
Suspect: "I claim 5th amendment rights."
Cops: "We have a Warrant for the seizure and search of this HDD, and you're blocking us from doing it. Therefore, you can rot in jail until you give up and give us what we want."
I had a CycloDS for my DS, but your DSi's firmware blocked it from working. This page reminded me to look, and sure enough, I can now buy a nice Acekard 2i for like $15 and/or a Supercrad DStwo for about $35 that does things your console should do natively (such as GBA and SNES emulation), both of which use the same 16 GB Micro SDHC card that my CycloDS uses, all of which will work with my nice Nintendo DSiXL.
Of course, since I own physical copies of all the games I put on my flash cart, it's all ethically sound, if not legally unassailable. Fortunately for me, I am much more concerned with living ethically, if not legally, especially when in regards to stupid, anti-consumer laws like the ones that would outlaw this sort of thing. Although Nintendo might be screwed even in that case, because "Jailbreaking" a mobile device is now legal in the US. Since my DS is a mobile device, and the Acekard / DStwo are methods of "jailbreaking," -- i.e., running unapproved software -- well, seems to me the much loved DMCA that Nintendo would no doubt use to shut these things down in the US... wouldn't actually shut them down.
So thank you, Nintendo. Thank you for reminding me to look for a DSi compatible flash cart, and reminding me I need to do my part to support small development studios like the Supercard and Acekard teams.
Just like how the "real researchers" laughed their ass off at the human genome project?
The human genome project was easy to scale up, the data was right in front of them, it was just a question of crunching it. And we still haven't a firm grasp of the complex interactions between genetic information, far from it.
Unlike such a project, we don't have the data in front of us to create intelligence, it would be as though there was considerable debate over the existence of genes in the first place. And even if we did, you'd still need an almost perfect physics engine to be able to do whatever you wanted, pretty much down to the molecular level. I'm not saying it will never happen, it probably will, but not for scores of generations at minimum. In the meantime you and your buddies can get a similar level of enjoyment with the abovementioned paper and pencil. I wouldn't see it as competition for online games, any more than I'd see football as competition for online games.
Ah yes, but do we have the data in front of us on what creates a good story? Because before editing, that's all this kind of thing is -- data. And data can be procedurally generated.
I'm not talking about a simulated world or whatnot. I'm specifically talking about using an algorithm to create outlines of NPC interactions in a RPG, which would later be used by a professional video game scriptwriter to flesh out scenarios.
By creating something like this, you could set up 50 - 100 semi-unique simulated personalities and give them semi-realistic responses to stimuli, such as the PC turning traitor or the big bad surrendering unexpectedly.
I suppose if you wanted to get in on this field early, teaching a computer how to write short fantasy novels would be your best bet. 10,000 words, or somesuch.
You genuinely have no clue what you're talking about. The level of AI needed to write a comprehensible, original novel is so far beyond our grasp at the moment that it may as well be impossible. We don't fully understand the bare concept of intelligence, let alone are able to simulate it. So no, you won't be seeing human level AIs in 15-20 years, or even a decent simulacrum thereof, if you said that to a real AI researcher he'd laugh his ass off at you.
Just like how the "real researchers" laughed their ass off at the human genome project?
Again, not talking about real AI here. Just talking about procedurally generated dialog trees and the like. Glorified chat-bots in order to facilitate the writing of large swaths of text really quickly.
Ask again in 20 years when the idea of having a true AI (or 100) in a computer RPG will be possible
20 years? Try 2000, you'd need a holodeck for what you're talking about.
Well, first off, I tend towards believing Kurzweil as being right (or at least close), which would put the technology closer to 20-80 years out. Is he right? Who knows? You're missing the point if you're asking that question -- the point isn't "are we going to see a singularity" but rather "are we going to be surprised by future tech when we're old and retired and think we know better?"
Secondly, the actual media/UI is irrelevant. We don't need holographics, a monitor would work just fine -- and we're far more likely to get consumer level AR/VR before any form of hardlight holographics anyway.
See, we're really reaching the real plateau where graphics cards are running out of steam -- a $50 card can still run all new games at mid/high graphics, and it's becoming prohibitively expensive to make "ultra high" graphics on a development side. *Something* has to change, either new tools for game development or a new interface. Myself, I believe we're ripe for a new interface -- VR of some sort being the likely candidate -- which will allow us to put that same graphics power back to good use. Perhaps monitors with a similar 3D system as Nintendo's 3DS or something will appear in the meantime, but that almost seems like a non-starter outside of handhelds.
But no, interface isn't the problem. The real problem we're discussing right now is the lack of AI/AGI, but even a nice procedurally generated content generation system would do what we want.
I think the ultimate middle ground that we'll start seeing in 5-15 years is Computer Augmented Scriptwriting (CAScripting) -- designers creating a not-quite-turing level pseudo-chat bot that will help them write large amounts of scenarios very quickly. Then this hypothetical future-BioWare would have a human script editing team go back and edit the scripts for flow.
By creating something like this, you could set up 50 - 100 semi-unique simulated personalities and give them semi-realistic responses to stimuli, such as the PC turning traitor or the big bad surrendering unexpectedly.
I suppose if you wanted to get in on this field early, teaching a computer how to write short fantasy novels would be your best bet. 10,000 words, or somesuch.
While the PC-xbox-what have you market may have hijacked the term "role playing game" for its own profit, it doesn't represent any actual role playing, which is where you sit around a table with your friends and pretend to be a someone or something else to whatever depth you feel comfortable. And until you have near reality physics engines and near human AI, as well as full facial/vocal/auditory interaction, you won't get that (really really fun) experience either.
Um, wow. Welcome to 20 years ago.
Seriously guys, we're limited by the technology. There's a reason CRPGs and JRPGs are what they are -- it's just not feasible to make the kind of experiences you are asking for. Consider Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that have hundreds of thousands of pages of text. Even they feel "railroady" at times. You can't join the villain, after all, because they didn't have an extra 5 years to write, script, draw, program, etc that scenario and the 500 sub-scenarios involved.
Ask again in 20 years when the idea of having a true AI (or 100) in a computer RPG will be possible, and we're seeing "The Elder Scrolls 8" with actual open ended, emergent gameplay. When you don't have to have a human writing each line of text, then the ability to "role play" becomes a lot more feasable.
Wait, Activision? They're still in business? I would have thought Robert Kotick would have ran them into the ground by now. God, he's getting slow in his old age.
What's that? He's trying to turn Battle.Net into "Facebook for Gamers?" He's going to require everyone playing WoW to use their real names on the official forums (and in the in game friends' list), so that the next time you piss off some mentally unhinged social reject you can figure that out by the knife embedded in your front door and the creepy breathing phone calls at 3 AM?
Ah, nevermind, he's right on track for running the company into the ground, he's just going slow so he can show off.
It wasn't just 270's and 280's. I've seen at least 3 GX620's with bad caps and one 745 with bad caps. Ah the tickets "User calling in with amber power light. No POST"
Dell GTS tech (Twin Falls 2006-2009) here. Capacitors do die, occasionally, even good (or at least, "as good as cheapest maker makes") ones. The GX270/280 (and yes, very early 620s) just had specific capacitors from a specific supplier that were made incorrectly.
One story I heard was that the company that made them stole the process from another company, and screwed it up. Another telling of the story had something to do with the capacitors being made with incorrect/impure water.
Regardless, this was a lifetime ago as far as tech stuff goes. I'm very surprised that it's being brought back up now.
Why eliminate them completely, why simply not raise the price until it's profitable if some consumer want them?
Because they know in 5, 10 years their network will easily be able to handle any data usage -- presuming they can stop buying their execs yachts and cocaine -- even while the advent of stuff like streaming HD Netflix Movies will send data usage through the roof. By getting us weaned off unlimited data NOW, they will make much more money LATER when everyone is hitting a paltry 2 gig cap.
Whenever you have a pay-per-minute system, you eventually see it shift to a pay-per-month system, and the price drops. We've seen it in ISPs, MMORPGs, Long Distance, and Cellphones. In each case, the companies remain profitable, but no where near as much if they were able to keep the pay-per-minute scheme going. But market forces force the companies to give customers a pay-per-month system over X number of years, which seems to be where consumers are happy enough.
Data plans on cellphones are evolving to that point. The next step would be the price dropping like a rock, which is the "part 2" of the market forces mess above. The cellphone companies are (probably illegally, but it's the US, so whatever) conspiring to price fix their market by simply dropping the rates en mass so that customers can't just flee AT&T for Verizon or Sprint or whoever has a sane plan, since they're all dropping the plans.
But this isn't about money. At least, not short turn.
It's about forcibly preventing that evolution so they can ride the wave further on out. Their networks are woefully insufficient, data usage is going up at a rate only Raymond Kurzweil expected, and it's only the start of the exponential growth (helloooo iPad HD Netflix App)... But all of these pale in comparison to the hope that they can stop the evolution of their market. ... Because if they can get people used to the idea of $25/2GB data plans that sound ok now, but in 5 years would get you maybe a movie or 4 streamed before the obscene data charges kick in... $25 is going to look like chump change. Remember that these are the assholes who thought ahead far enough to make the web buttons, which load just enough on your data plans to cost you a few cents, stupidly easy to press. They make millions from it.
If they can get the average user -- or the average for their network -- to spend more than $6 a month in overage fees, this whole mess becomes hugely profitable for them. IF they can get it to $7, $10, or even $15, it's even better.
I am a religious freak. And I do not oppose adult stem cell research at all. Hey, my nephew probably owes his life to it. I do oppose embryonic stem cell research, because it creates a demand for dead babies, which I have a huge moral problem with.
So you oppose fertility clinics, then? Cause they create a *lot* of extra embryos and stem cells (the random junk DNA that you call "dead babies") and most of them are either destroyed outright, or allowed to grow until they die on their own due to genetic defects and the like.
What gets me is instead of using these junk embryos that are literally thrown out with the wash, we have to allow years and immeasurable promises of medical miracles due to a bunch of people terrified of pissing off Santa Claus. Er, sorry, "God".
Unbelievable, shameful, and outright immoral.
Is the PSP in trouble? Yes. But it's at the end of it's lifespan anyways. TGS or E32011 will bring the PSP2, and Sony isn't stupid, they know what they need to build this time around.
Basically, at this point they're going to have to do 3D with the PSP2. Anything less than that is going to leave Nintendo way, way in the lead. The PSP was a stalled, almost dead platform before, now Nintendo's just about lapped them.
Maybe they could pull an Apple and just have the PSP2 have an iPad sized screen, but that would be incredibly expensive, I can't see them doing that.
Nintendo had a huge lead in handheld gaming. The PSP and PSPgo were supposed to close the gap, and all it did was inspire Nintendo to actually get off their asses and try for the first time in decades.
And for that, I myself thank Sony for being the sacrificial lamb.
As for the Wiihd? You do realize that would be competing with the Ps4/Xbox 720 right?
And what will the PS4/XBox720 bring to the table, other than a cheap Wiimote knockoff each and slightly tweaked graphics?
We're at the plateau here, guys. The Wii can do "good enough" graphics for most games. The PS3 and 360 can do better, granted, but as Yahtzee puts it -- that puts the development cost a few years and a few million bucks on the wrong side of uncomfortable.
The Wii2 or whatever will have good enough graphics -- probably PS3/360 level. But here's the important thing -- it will have them right around the time price that the development resources for the PS3/360 level of graphics drops like a brick, because the PS3/XBox3's development studios will drive the cost down of the older development tech.
And due to years of constant research and player testing, it will have vastly superior motion control than the other 2 -- Things like Motion+ or whatever will be built in to the Wiimote2.
You know all those gimmicky games that fat, neckbearded trolls on Kotaku and the like love to bitch about? Those are market research. Nintendo's figuring out what works and what doesn't, so they can perfect it. I have no doubt that there are helpful hints in the SDK and the various kits given to developers saying "This works best with X amount of leeway when reading the player's buttonpresses."
But lets step back to the graphics. At the PS3 point of graphics, well, are you really going to notice much of a difference between the PS3 and, well, anything that comes next?
On games that don't take 5 years to make and $100 to buy?
Even the poster child for graphical superiority this gen -- Final Fantasy 13 -- is the last of it's kind. SE has said flat out they aren't doing that mess again. FF13 being a festering pile of crap gameplay wise -- note a pattern -- probably has something to do with it.
And Dragon Quest 10, the other flagship series? Wii title. DQ9 was DS, of all things.
(Reminder: Dragon Quest 9 comes out July 11th in the US. Preorder today!)
I guess my point is an engaging experience is the new battlefield, that's why you are seeing Microsoft and Sony playing a desperate game of blatant catchup. If this wasn't important, they'd at least wait until next generation to do it. Instead they're honestly expecting people to spend hundreds of dollars to pick up their Wiimote ripoffs.
Nintendo shifted the game entirely, making the Microsoft and Sony advantages weigh them down.
You couldn't get away with a game that looked like Super Mario Galaxy on the PS3 or 360 no matter how fun it was -- certain genres like SRPG notwithstanding -- it'd be "too kiddy". There's an unspoken requirement for the 360 and PS3 games to hit a certain graphical complexity, at the cost of development time, gameplay, et cetera. Nintendo, the "kiddy console", doesn't have that albatross.
Nintendo has Sony and Microsoft by their graphics cards and is pushing the boot down.
Sony seems to hope that 3D
The wiser people at Microsoft and Sony are pissing themselves right now.
The 3DS is better in literally every stat than the PSP, even the PSPgo. Better graphics, better screen, bigger data files (2GB max at launch opposed to 1.8GB UMDs), better input (analog stick, dpad, AND touch), better everything.
Nintendo spent a time with weaker graphics to perfect a "gimmick", and once it became cheap to increase the graphics, did.
Meanwhile, on the "big boy stage", both of the other big 3 are busy trying to desperately imitate the "gimmick" of motion control that they spent the past few years mocking Nintendo for doing. Meanwhile, Nintendo's perfecting it.
It's cheap, from an IP standpoint, to add more graphical power. You don't really need to research it, for example.
And now, it's cheap from a hardware standpoint, too.
That 8 bit chiptune version of the Jaws Theme you hear is Nintendo, stalking Sony and Microsoft's lunch.
The Wii3D or whatever their next console is going to be is going to do the same thing the 3DS did to the PSP, to the PS3 and the 360. Take a gimmick they have perfected, perhaps add another gimmick, but increase the graphics and remove the one advantage the other two have.
There was never any doubt about the authenticity of the videos - the military admitted they were real. What they argued was that the videos didn't show the context in which there had been combat nearby.
Now, how nearby combat affects whether you can shoot at people retrieving the wounded without violating the Geneva Conventions is a different question. What is very clear, though, is that this is a small taste of what the Iraq War really looks like, and that some soldiers under the sort of combat pressure end up thinking along the lines of "Anyone who runs is an insurgent. Anyone who doesn't run is a well-disciplined insurgent."
Don't you remember? Lord High Glorious Leader King Bush the 2nd decreed that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "t'err'sts", and by definition, anyone we're at war with is a "t'err'st". Therefore, there were no violations of the human rights given in the Geneva Conventions, as our targets aren't humans.
Even though they later turned out to not be t'err'sts, upon firing upon them they became t'err'sts, at least temporarily, and that makes everything A-OK!
No, I don't believe this for a second either. In sane, rational times we could put the "Saddam" check on it -- "If Saddam Hussein tried to say this, would we use it as evidence against his administration to help justify an embargo / invasion?" Well, yes, we probably would.
But we do not live in sane, rational times -- in sane, rational times, George Bush Jr and a host of treasonous war criminals in his administration would be in the Hague right now undergoing war crimes trials. Instead, we have to be "bipartisan", which is bubblespeek for "let the Republicans do what they want".
"No."
Eventually, doctors will just start writing please on all their lab request forms and the hospital will be back where it started.
If the doctors were thinking ahead, they'd get some stamps or stencils or stationary with the word "please" already there. And then complain to the management every single time they didn't get done.
Of course, this will end when a customer complains about a delayed blood test...
Perhaps will need to be a legal complaint, but...
Here in Japan, when we jailbroke our iPhones for tethering, on an "unlimited" plan, the CEO of the carrier made a public statement saying that unlimited wasn't really unlimited. If you use more than 300GB per month, you get a speed bump. I wasn't aware that it was even physically possible to use 300GB per month!
But that's OK, no need to worry about going over the cap. We also have the device marketed as the Pocket WiFi. A small little WiFi/3G router. Pop it out, turn it on, and 5 people can connect to the 'net with a 3G connection (HSPA). Unlimited. For real. And probably considerably faster than most DSL lines in the U.S.
Why in the world are you guys still living with 1.5Mbps DSL, 2GB capped data plans on 3G, and all the other crap I read about!? Even the elderly in Japan don't use that stuff. And we're not even Korean! :-P (And no, please don't give me the "last mile" joke. I live in Hokkaido, which is the boonies. I've got 100Mbps fiber to my home, and decent 3G coverage too. And no, it's not because our cell service started late in the game so we only had to build out, not build new. Our mobile phone networks have changed from Analog to CDMA to 3G over the past years. We're ready to finish phasing out 2G this year, as 4G has pretty much coverage in metropolitan areas, and will likely be built out soon too.)
The market in the US is vastly different.
The ISPs are vastly oversold. It's not even remotely funny. I worked for a small mom and pop one in Yakima, WA for 4 years. I do not know the pipe we had, but I know if 100% of our customers were using 100% of their guaranteed bandwidth 24/7, we'd NEVER be able to meet those needs. Ever. No ISP could.
We were counting on "the grandmothers" checking email once every few hours and that's IT. In a way, the no-or-low use customers subsidize every customer on Bittorrent. And the number of Bittorrent -- and Netflix, and Pandora, and... the high use users are multiplying, exponentially.
Now, you may think this is just because we were a smaller ISP. You'd be wrong. The bigger ISPs had ISPs like us as customers -- and they were playing the same shell game. Selling us 50Mbps, expecting us to use 20 except during peak hours. That kind of thing.
There is, of course, no regulation in this at all, out side of "free market forces" -- which is US codeword for "Let the Buyer Beware" or, perhaps more negatively, "The cons get away with what they can get suckers to buy."
There are other forces at work, of course. Quite a few of these networks aren't getting upgraded due to the general overpriced network components (and labor, and perquisite bribes, and the like) in the US -- I was told once that it takes an ISP 20 years to pay off the fiber used to wire a single neighborhood. You say boonies, but... some of our boonies are bigger than your entire country.
We're not talking last mile, we're talking "last hundred miles." A lot of these areas are just too expensive to be upgraded.
But there's another more primal force here, of course -- simple greed.
Why would AT&T offer 100Mbit DSL connections right now, when they can't really handle it... but also when they can sell 5Mbit connections for the same price, more or less, while offering 100Mbit "business class" DSL connections for an absolutely obscene markup?
The second they start offering 100Mbit consumer connections, market forces will cause the prices of 100Mbit and the ones under it to crater. If they simply never offer it... said market forces won't happen. And since the US has built in monopolies on the infrastructure (the fiber, the cable wires, etc) despite the government helping pay for them... In theory, nothing will ever change.
The Cellphone Modem problem is the same trick, only we played this one before. Back in the day, you'd pay per minute/hour for the internet. This was eventually fought off as other ISPs offered pay per day, and pay per month account
i'm looking at the Apple site right now. cleared cache and it I can still purchase any 3G iPad with $30 unlimited plan.
It was not available yesterday. The block of text with the "buy 3G" "Buy 32" or whatnot was just gone.
The $30 unlimited plan, well, you have to sign up on the iPad itself. If you purchased an iPad 3G today, you'd get it in a few weeks, long past the cutoff date for buying Unlimited Wireless.
data only plans? can't believe that
Yeah, that would be too awesome. I'd love an iPhone with a iPad-like Data plan, but it won't happen.
I'd like to point out that when I said this, I did not intend for AT&T to take it as an excuse to do the complete bass-ackwards thing and nerf the iPad plan. Sorry everyone.