Quite. Given Google is very selective about picking the cream of the crop as their employees, you'd expect their employees to be disproportionately liberal.
Socialism and National Socialism are completely opposite ideologies. Calling yourself a "socialist" in Hitler's Germany got you a one way ticket to prison - if you were lucky. National Socialism is an ideology based upon racial superiority. Socialism is an ideology based upon working cooperatively rather than in competition.
Here are some other helpful things to know:
Christian Scientists are not scientists
Neo-liberals are not liberals
Parapsychologists are not psychologists
Shampoo is not poo
The last of these is particularly important, especially if you're the kind of person who believes that socialism and national socialism resemble one another in some way. You will not "save money" by using your own poo to wash your hair.
Nowhere did I suggest the article linked to was a troll. I said it, and Roughly Drafted, is brain-damagingly bad, and I stand by that. Roughly Drafted is unusually awful for incoherent arguments based upon the jumbling together of dubious facts wrapped up in conclusions that owe little to the facts given and appear to have little to do with anything beyond Apple fanboism.
I don't think there's any organized campaign against RD, but there are a hell of a lot of us who have noticed that (a) it's terrible and (b) it's given a surprisingly amount of support by members of the community who should know better, from Slashdot's front page, to Apple enthusiasts like John Gruber.
Wonder if it's worth pointing out that resolution isn't the only issue here. NTSC looks awful compared to 720p or 1080i ATSC on my 32" HDTV. But DVDs, which have the same physical resolution as NTSC, look absolutely fine. I'd imagine much of the difference actually has to do with colour resolution and information, not pixel resolution.
If they believed all that strongly in HD-DVD's technical merits, the switch wouldn't have required grease on the wheels.
Yes, they would, because in the real world technical merits are not the only factor that can be used to determine the best product to support. In particular, Paramount has a risk cost associated with a switch to HD-DVD: at the time they decided to switch, it was Blu-ray that clearly had the commercial lead. If Paramount were to back HD-DVD, and HD-DVD were to flop, then they'd lose hundreds of millions in lost sales in the process.
Both factors almost certainly contributed to Paramount's decision. There's little reason in switching if the sole reason is a large bribe. You also have to believe in the viability of the product to begin with.
It's usual Slashbot paranoia that leads people to conclude that bribes are the only reason businesses make the decisions they make. Businesses usually make their decisions on the basis of a range of criteria. Ultimately, the long term is to make a profit. You can't back what you believe to be the superior product if there's a high risk it will flop, and no amount of bribery are going to persuade you to back a clearly inferior technology that has no other merits.
The only difference between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is capacity?
HD-DVD allows:
Unencrypted disks
Hard disk juke box support
DVD media support
Lower media manufacturing costs
Blu-ray is saddled with one DRM scheme identical to HD-DVD's, and a couple of others that have turned out to be disasters in practice that are highly unlikely to ever work properly. Aside from that, it has nothing HD-DVD doesn't have, and lacks the features above - as of current working, purchasable, systems. That, and slightly more capacity.
I can see how Paramount would have reached the conclusion they did. I'm amazed that someone posting to a technical website would see the difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD exclusively in terms of media capacity. That just seems weird to me.
As usual, it's an idiotic Slashbot simplification - if you don't like the results, pretend it's all about bribery. Paramount was paid for switching to HD-DVD, but it's not the only reason. Paramount does appear to believe HD-DVD is technically a superior system.
Works both ways though. Do a search of "HD-DVD player" on Amazon.com and you'll find a huge number of matches - only a handful of which are actually HD-DVD(tm) players. Most are... wait for it... HD DVD players. Note the space, and lack of a (tm). These are DVD players that "support" HD, usually by promoting the same, tired, old up-convert/de-interlace features that already are in every modern HDTV set, and the (commercially unsupported) DivX codec. So while it's obvious what it is from the name, it's not obvious what players really are HD-DVD players, and which are just "good" DVD players. Most consumers are going to face confusion looking for a such a thing.
Name recognition is over-rated anyway. A visit to any electronics store will show you HD-DVD and Blu-ray in the same place, with panels explaining that they do more or less the same thing. Once you're ready to part with your money, you will find out about Blu-ray.
Another problem is manufacturer support. HD-DVD(tm) (heh) has, from what I can figure out, only two major hardware manufacturers supporting it, and LG, one of the two, swings both ways.
Not that I particularly want Blu-ray to win, personally I prefer the slightly thicker (and therefore less likely to cut the flesh) metal used in HD-DVD's DRM handcuffs, you can struggle a little longer without causing permanent nerve damage than you can in Blu-ray's razor cuffs. (HD-DVD supports DVD jukeboxes, and has only one form of DRM; Blu-ray supports multiple schemes and those additional DRM schemes have already proven themselves to be as disastrous as the hacks used to hamper the copying of CDs. Additionally, HD-DVD permits unencrypted content to be made, and even ordinary DVD media to be used.) I just think it's far from over at this stage and simple "Everyone knows what HD-DVD is" type logic falls flat when you investigate it.
The whole thing's stupid anyway. A modern codec with ordinary dual-layer DVD media would have given us full length HD movies and could have been incorporated into new DVD players without adding significantly (if at all) to the costs. But noooo, we had to go the untested blue laser route.
Few people are ever fired for a breach of a minor rule in any corporation. Supposedly minor rules are usually only invoked if the breach is a cause of a wider problem. For example, an unproductive employee might be fired for visiting personal websites during working hours. The cause of the firing is that the employee isn't worth keeping because they (amongst other things) spend all day browsing the web and not working, not that the websites were not work related.
Remember, it kills morale and makes people want to leave if they're in fear of losing their jobs over something other than performance and/or disruptive behavior. It's also expensive - an employee of any worth takes months, sometimes years, to replace, and crucial information is inevitably lost whenever anyone leaves. While corporations suck at the whole morale thing, it's an exaggeration to assume that most people are fired over something "innocuous". Even if the reason given might appear that way, the fact is the corporation wouldn't be firing the person in the first place if there wasn't a good reason to get rid of them.
That said, the reason in this case could be as simple as Scott isn't worth anything close to waht he was being paid and was easily losable.
No, but I'd question the intelligence of someone who confuses one of these with a Wii-mote.
is it really so hard to imagine a parent wanting to buy extra controllers for a Wii, seeing this, and being misled?
Well, only if they're equally likely to confuse a Wii-mote with a mobile phone or a bar of chocolate. The only thing they have to go on is that it is styled similarly to a Wii-mote. It doesn't, however, look like one (I assume you don't have a Wii, and didn't bother looking at the photos. If either are true, then I suggest your first question to me would be better directed at you. Does your Wii-mote have, for example, an LCD screen?), it isn't labeled as one, it's improbable that Wal-Mart will place the device in the Nintendo section with the other Nintendo accessories.
So we have a device that doesn't claim to have anything to do with the Wii, which doesn't look like a Wii-mote, and whose only connection is a vague stylistic resemblance. What parents are going to buy it? Just about the only ones I can think of are parents who'd mistake an iFan for an iPod.
the design of this thing is closer to an actual Wii remote than, say, a 3rd party Gamecube controller to a Nintendo Gamecube controller.
The style is, the design isn't. Of course, the latter doesn't confuse anyone either - people buying third party Gamecube controllers don't appear to have any problems with the concept of "different style, similar function", just as people not buying iFans don't seem to have a problem with "Similar style, different look and function."
the fake speaker on the front is also pretty good reason alone to suspect the product aims to mislead.
But the LCD on the front is a pretty good reason alone to suspect the product is legitimate and only uses the Wii-mote's styling as the typical short-cut way of saying "Hey, I'm fun, and up to date and hip with it!"
Or maybe all those "1980s games consoles in a joypad" things are also attempts to mislead as a substantial number of them look very similar to Gamecube and PS2 controllers. Interestingly, parents don't seem to have a problem with those either.
Meanwhile Wal-Mart takes returns, so for the seriously myopic idiot who wandered into the wrong part of the store and bought something that doesn't look like a Wii-mote and doesn't have any indication on the packaging suggesting it is one, the solution is to return it and get the device he asked for. You'll... I mean he'll... probably need to swap that iFan too. Man, you... er he... knew $10 for an iPod was too good to be true!
I have to agree. I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these, let alone an entire Wii. They don't look the same, they just use the same styling.
There's no fraud involved, they're taking design cues from a market leader, largely, one assumes, so people see at a glance it's intended to be some kind of gaming device. If this is fraud, then those iFan things that look like iPods are even worse examples, and the CEOs of the companies making them should serve jailtime!
Sony made VHS decks. And nobody thinks Blu-ray has any long term viability any more.
Blu-ray is dying
It is now official. Nielsen has confirmed: Blu-ray is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Blu-ray community when IDC confirmed that Blu-ray market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all high definition sales. Coming on the heels of a recent Nielsen survey which plainly states that Blu-ray has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Blu-ray is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Best Buy comprehensive high definition test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Blu-ray's future. The hand is writing on the wall: Blu-ray faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Blu-ray because Blu-ray is dying. Things are looking very bad for Blu-ray. As many of us are already aware, Blu-ray continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Sony's PlayStation 3 is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core enthusiasts. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time PlayStation developers Electronic Arts and Rockstar North only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: PlayStation 3 is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Disney states that there are 7,000 owners of "Finding Nemo - Blu-ray Edition." How many buyers of "Spiderman 3" are there? Let's see. The number of Finding Nemo versus Spiderman 3 posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 owners of Spiderman 3 Blu-ray discs. Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Spiderman 3 posts. Therefore there are about 700 owners of Fantastic Four Blu-ray discs. A recent article put Spiderman 2 at about 80 percent of the Blu-ray market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 owners of Spiderman 2 Blu-ray discs. This is consistent with the number of Spiderman 2 Usenet posts, and explained by the fact that the disc is bundled with most PlayStation 3s.
Due to the troubles of Sony, abysmal sales and so on, the original PlayStation 3 is no longer on sale and has been replaced by several successively cheaper, less desirable, versions. The PlayStation 3 is practically dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Blu-ray has steadily declined in market share. Blu-ray is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Blu-ray is to survive at all it will be among HD dilettante dabblers. Blu-ray continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Blu-ray is dead.
Fox wasn't stupid with Firefly. They gave it a chance, it didn't look like it was going to be a smash hit success, and decided that if it was a choice between trying something else or gambling that Firefly might possibly turn-around, trying something else seemed more appropriate. Fox has a finite amount of money. That it actually bothers to take gambles like it did on Firefly (and the numerous other failures Fox has greenlighted) is a sign it has far more integrity than its critics give it credit for.
While Firefly's numbers rose after cancellation, they never reached the same levels as that of the show they replaced, and while Firefly fans tend to suggest the show had some kind of resurgence of interest after it disappeared from the screens, the evidence is poor - the (medium budget) movie barely took box office receipts as high as its budget (meaning it made a 50% loss), and the show's DVD sales were only high because they contained previously un-aired episodes. Fox certainly appears to have made the right decision to cancel the show.
If Fox had been as smart as Firefly fans claim it should have been then Firefly would never have had the green light. Fox would have continued with Dark Angel which already had a substantial audience and which Firefly replaced.
I must confess to being surprised most of Fox's critics don't "get it" when it comes to the complaints of constant cancellations of good shows. Those good shows would never have existed on other networks. The reason you got emotionally attached to them in the first place is because Fox tried them out. Alas, in the majority of cases, the shows really didn't have the audiences needed to keep them viable.
I'm not suggesting there aren't things Fox could do better, but to assume this show is going to be treated badly because Fox will do something wrong is inappropriate - the reality is that this show stands no chance of seeing the light of day in a parallel universe where Fox doesn't exist. They appear to be the one network willing to take major gambles. Good on them. And if the show is cancelled after a few episodes, just be glad you got the chance to see them at all.
Ok, all three of you (the GP, and your sibling poster), remember the question was about genetically engineered mice? Of the three, yours is the only one that hints that you read the "genetically engineered" part of the question, and even then, would the additional mobility make that much of a difference in helping spread the plague?
I'm not following your train of logic here. In general, the manuals for HDTVs recommend HDMI or component over all else if it's available, at least, that's what I saw in mine (with a whole set of "This is preferred, this is better, do this if you must, etc.) Three years ago, HDMI was practically non-existent, now it's in everything. It's the recommended way to hook things up. HDMI if there, component if no HDMI, S-Video if no component or HDMI, composite if no S-Video, Component, or HDMI, and (*snort*) antenna as a last resort.
I think it's great actually. Composite comprises of three cables which have to be plugged in correctly. Grandma does have a problem with that. HDMI is just one cable that does everything. Plug it in, it "just works". About the only way you could make it easier is if you removed the support for legacy standards (ie removed the component, S-Video, and composite sockets), and I think you'd be amongst the first to howl if that happened. So the idea that HDTVs and HD-DVD/Bluray players aren't "ready for the public" is as laughable as the old "GNU/Linux isn't ready for the desktop*" comments. Anyone who makes those kinds of comments has essentially made them based upon a brief assessment made three years ago based upon an incompetent install.
* Ubuntu 7.04 is unquestionably easier to use than Windows 9x, Me, XP and Vista. In some cases, it might be unsuitable for your desktop (in the same way that Windows may be unsuitable for many), or it may be that it doesn't support all your hardware properly (but let's not pretend Windows when not bundled with a computer doesn't have the same issue - and nobody claims Mac OS X isn't "ready for the desktop" and that barely supports anything...), but in a fair fight, Ubuntu is easier to use than Windows, more powerful than the latter, more reliable, less likely to be trojaned or infected by a virus (though that has a lot to do with the lack of users), and has equal application support albeit with strengths and weaknesses in different areas.
Ta_bu_shi_da_yu's a Wikipedia admin who has a viewpoint that's useful to know. Additionally he's reverted at least one apparently unfair delete pointed out to him in this discussion, which should at least demonstrate good faith on his part. I appreciate your support, but I think your attack on Ta_bu_shi_da_yu is unjustified and inappropriate.
The irony here is that those who have webcomics wouldn't dream of complaining to Encarta or the EB, as everyone would just either laugh at them or ignore their whining
There's no irony in the above whatsoever. For Encarta or EB to have an article on "Bob the Angry Flower", Microsoft or Britannica has to pay professionals real money to research and write the article for the subject. And in the past, EB would have had the added problem of the size of the encyclopedia adding to its cost and manageability for end users. By comparison, in Wikipedia we're talking about articles that have already been written and contributed for free, that - if truly non-noteworthy - add fractions of a cent to the costs of running Wikipedia as an on-going operation. Bandwidth costs for an article nobody reads are non-existent, the only real cost is storage. How much does 10 kilobytes cost?
I'm not proposing (and didn't propose - I did the opposite) that there's no reason for AFDs at all, but I do believe that as deleting legitimate articles has a real cost and DOES undermine Wikipedia more than keeping a non-notable article, the discretion should be on the side of not deleting. Fast track processes for article deletion in particular need to be reviewed so only the narrowest of criteria can apply to them. That is not the case right now.
Personally I can't see how a periodically updated openly available webcomic is not a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia article in an environment such as Wikipedia's where the contribution cost is free and the maintenance cost is more or less proportional to the webcomic's notability. Unless the comic is being used as a wedge to pass by genuinely unencyclopedic content, there's no legitimate reason to delete such articles.
I'm not so sure the vote shown is an example of systematic failure, which would make your comments about how the system has changed appropriate. More this was apparent[1] administrator abuse. There was no apparent logic used to justify deleting votes beyond an apparently irrelevant and in-consistent contribution count. If admins are going to go out of their way to discount votes on apparently made-up criteria, then any systematic changes that encourage more discretion in how to pick votes would seem to me to be for the worse, not for the better.
I have to say I'm surprised at how quickly people are willing to rush to AFDs on Wikipedia. AFDs cause real damage to legitimate articles, and it's seriously questionable that Wikipedia is in any way undermined by a glut of articles on apparent trivia. At the very least, the "fast track" procedures need to be overhauled, and it shouldn't be assumed that people are going to be able to react in time to bogus fast track AFD procedures.
1 - no-one, neither you nor anyone else, appears to be describing how the deletions could ever have been considered legitimate, and they appear completely nonsensical and biased against one side only. The pattern appears to me to be abusive.
Slashdot Mirror
No, just the cream of the crop. Basically we're smarter than you are. Smart people don't vote Republican.
Quite. Given Google is very selective about picking the cream of the crop as their employees, you'd expect their employees to be disproportionately liberal.
Socialism and National Socialism are completely opposite ideologies. Calling yourself a "socialist" in Hitler's Germany got you a one way ticket to prison - if you were lucky. National Socialism is an ideology based upon racial superiority. Socialism is an ideology based upon working cooperatively rather than in competition.
Here are some other helpful things to know:
The last of these is particularly important, especially if you're the kind of person who believes that socialism and national socialism resemble one another in some way. You will not "save money" by using your own poo to wash your hair.
I hope this helps,
Nowhere did I suggest the article linked to was a troll. I said it, and Roughly Drafted, is brain-damagingly bad, and I stand by that. Roughly Drafted is unusually awful for incoherent arguments based upon the jumbling together of dubious facts wrapped up in conclusions that owe little to the facts given and appear to have little to do with anything beyond Apple fanboism.
I don't think there's any organized campaign against RD, but there are a hell of a lot of us who have noticed that (a) it's terrible and (b) it's given a surprisingly amount of support by members of the community who should know better, from Slashdot's front page, to Apple enthusiasts like John Gruber.
The above contains links to the brain-damagingly awful Roughly Drafted website. For a more automatic warning in Firefox, TheRaven64 has posted a useful hack anyone can make to their user.css file.
Wonder if it's worth pointing out that resolution isn't the only issue here. NTSC looks awful compared to 720p or 1080i ATSC on my 32" HDTV. But DVDs, which have the same physical resolution as NTSC, look absolutely fine. I'd imagine much of the difference actually has to do with colour resolution and information, not pixel resolution.
Yes, they would, because in the real world technical merits are not the only factor that can be used to determine the best product to support. In particular, Paramount has a risk cost associated with a switch to HD-DVD: at the time they decided to switch, it was Blu-ray that clearly had the commercial lead. If Paramount were to back HD-DVD, and HD-DVD were to flop, then they'd lose hundreds of millions in lost sales in the process.
Both factors almost certainly contributed to Paramount's decision. There's little reason in switching if the sole reason is a large bribe. You also have to believe in the viability of the product to begin with.
It's usual Slashbot paranoia that leads people to conclude that bribes are the only reason businesses make the decisions they make. Businesses usually make their decisions on the basis of a range of criteria. Ultimately, the long term is to make a profit. You can't back what you believe to be the superior product if there's a high risk it will flop, and no amount of bribery are going to persuade you to back a clearly inferior technology that has no other merits.
The only difference between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is capacity?
HD-DVD allows:
Blu-ray is saddled with one DRM scheme identical to HD-DVD's, and a couple of others that have turned out to be disasters in practice that are highly unlikely to ever work properly. Aside from that, it has nothing HD-DVD doesn't have, and lacks the features above - as of current working, purchasable, systems. That, and slightly more capacity.
I can see how Paramount would have reached the conclusion they did. I'm amazed that someone posting to a technical website would see the difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD exclusively in terms of media capacity. That just seems weird to me.
As usual, it's an idiotic Slashbot simplification - if you don't like the results, pretend it's all about bribery. Paramount was paid for switching to HD-DVD, but it's not the only reason. Paramount does appear to believe HD-DVD is technically a superior system.
Works both ways though. Do a search of "HD-DVD player" on Amazon.com and you'll find a huge number of matches - only a handful of which are actually HD-DVD(tm) players. Most are... wait for it... HD DVD players. Note the space, and lack of a (tm). These are DVD players that "support" HD, usually by promoting the same, tired, old up-convert/de-interlace features that already are in every modern HDTV set, and the (commercially unsupported) DivX codec. So while it's obvious what it is from the name, it's not obvious what players really are HD-DVD players, and which are just "good" DVD players. Most consumers are going to face confusion looking for a such a thing.
Name recognition is over-rated anyway. A visit to any electronics store will show you HD-DVD and Blu-ray in the same place, with panels explaining that they do more or less the same thing. Once you're ready to part with your money, you will find out about Blu-ray.
Another problem is manufacturer support. HD-DVD(tm) (heh) has, from what I can figure out, only two major hardware manufacturers supporting it, and LG, one of the two, swings both ways.
Not that I particularly want Blu-ray to win, personally I prefer the slightly thicker (and therefore less likely to cut the flesh) metal used in HD-DVD's DRM handcuffs, you can struggle a little longer without causing permanent nerve damage than you can in Blu-ray's razor cuffs. (HD-DVD supports DVD jukeboxes, and has only one form of DRM; Blu-ray supports multiple schemes and those additional DRM schemes have already proven themselves to be as disastrous as the hacks used to hamper the copying of CDs. Additionally, HD-DVD permits unencrypted content to be made, and even ordinary DVD media to be used.) I just think it's far from over at this stage and simple "Everyone knows what HD-DVD is" type logic falls flat when you investigate it.
The whole thing's stupid anyway. A modern codec with ordinary dual-layer DVD media would have given us full length HD movies and could have been incorporated into new DVD players without adding significantly (if at all) to the costs. But noooo, we had to go the untested blue laser route.
Few people are ever fired for a breach of a minor rule in any corporation. Supposedly minor rules are usually only invoked if the breach is a cause of a wider problem. For example, an unproductive employee might be fired for visiting personal websites during working hours. The cause of the firing is that the employee isn't worth keeping because they (amongst other things) spend all day browsing the web and not working, not that the websites were not work related.
Remember, it kills morale and makes people want to leave if they're in fear of losing their jobs over something other than performance and/or disruptive behavior. It's also expensive - an employee of any worth takes months, sometimes years, to replace, and crucial information is inevitably lost whenever anyone leaves. While corporations suck at the whole morale thing, it's an exaggeration to assume that most people are fired over something "innocuous". Even if the reason given might appear that way, the fact is the corporation wouldn't be firing the person in the first place if there wasn't a good reason to get rid of them.
That said, the reason in this case could be as simple as Scott isn't worth anything close to waht he was being paid and was easily losable.
Are you sure it's not just that you only notice people talking on cellphones if they're talking louder than others would in a normal conversation?
People generally only notice things if they're annoying. That's why everything is apparently an annoying trend until you do it.
No, but I'd question the intelligence of someone who confuses one of these with a Wii-mote.
Well, only if they're equally likely to confuse a Wii-mote with a mobile phone or a bar of chocolate. The only thing they have to go on is that it is styled similarly to a Wii-mote. It doesn't, however, look like one (I assume you don't have a Wii, and didn't bother looking at the photos. If either are true, then I suggest your first question to me would be better directed at you. Does your Wii-mote have, for example, an LCD screen?), it isn't labeled as one, it's improbable that Wal-Mart will place the device in the Nintendo section with the other Nintendo accessories.
So we have a device that doesn't claim to have anything to do with the Wii, which doesn't look like a Wii-mote, and whose only connection is a vague stylistic resemblance. What parents are going to buy it? Just about the only ones I can think of are parents who'd mistake an iFan for an iPod.
The style is, the design isn't. Of course, the latter doesn't confuse anyone either - people buying third party Gamecube controllers don't appear to have any problems with the concept of "different style, similar function", just as people not buying iFans don't seem to have a problem with "Similar style, different look and function."
But the LCD on the front is a pretty good reason alone to suspect the product is legitimate and only uses the Wii-mote's styling as the typical short-cut way of saying "Hey, I'm fun, and up to date and hip with it!"
Or maybe all those "1980s games consoles in a joypad" things are also attempts to mislead as a substantial number of them look very similar to Gamecube and PS2 controllers. Interestingly, parents don't seem to have a problem with those either.
Meanwhile Wal-Mart takes returns, so for the seriously myopic idiot who wandered into the wrong part of the store and bought something that doesn't look like a Wii-mote and doesn't have any indication on the packaging suggesting it is one, the solution is to return it and get the device he asked for. You'll... I mean he'll... probably need to swap that iFan too. Man, you... er he... knew $10 for an iPod was too good to be true!
I have to agree. I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these, let alone an entire Wii. They don't look the same, they just use the same styling.
There's no fraud involved, they're taking design cues from a market leader, largely, one assumes, so people see at a glance it's intended to be some kind of gaming device. If this is fraud, then those iFan things that look like iPods are even worse examples, and the CEOs of the companies making them should serve jailtime!
Sony made VHS decks. And nobody thinks Blu-ray has any long term viability any more.
Blu-ray is dying
It is now official. Nielsen has confirmed: Blu-ray is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Blu-ray community when IDC confirmed that Blu-ray market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all high definition sales. Coming on the heels of a recent Nielsen survey which plainly states that Blu-ray has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Blu-ray is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Best Buy comprehensive high definition test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Blu-ray's future. The hand is writing on the wall: Blu-ray faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Blu-ray because Blu-ray is dying. Things are looking very bad for Blu-ray. As many of us are already aware, Blu-ray continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Sony's PlayStation 3 is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core enthusiasts. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time PlayStation developers Electronic Arts and Rockstar North only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: PlayStation 3 is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Disney states that there are 7,000 owners of "Finding Nemo - Blu-ray Edition." How many buyers of "Spiderman 3" are there? Let's see. The number of Finding Nemo versus Spiderman 3 posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 owners of Spiderman 3 Blu-ray discs. Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Spiderman 3 posts. Therefore there are about 700 owners of Fantastic Four Blu-ray discs. A recent article put Spiderman 2 at about 80 percent of the Blu-ray market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 owners of Spiderman 2 Blu-ray discs. This is consistent with the number of Spiderman 2 Usenet posts, and explained by the fact that the disc is bundled with most PlayStation 3s.
Due to the troubles of Sony, abysmal sales and so on, the original PlayStation 3 is no longer on sale and has been replaced by several successively cheaper, less desirable, versions. The PlayStation 3 is practically dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Blu-ray has steadily declined in market share. Blu-ray is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Blu-ray is to survive at all it will be among HD dilettante dabblers. Blu-ray continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Blu-ray is dead.
(Do I need to put in the sarcasm tags? Hmmm.)
It's bad enough people talking on their cellphones when driving, but playing Splinter Cell, or, God Help Us, Grand Theft Auto?
Truly terrifying!
Fox wasn't stupid with Firefly. They gave it a chance, it didn't look like it was going to be a smash hit success, and decided that if it was a choice between trying something else or gambling that Firefly might possibly turn-around, trying something else seemed more appropriate. Fox has a finite amount of money. That it actually bothers to take gambles like it did on Firefly (and the numerous other failures Fox has greenlighted) is a sign it has far more integrity than its critics give it credit for.
While Firefly's numbers rose after cancellation, they never reached the same levels as that of the show they replaced, and while Firefly fans tend to suggest the show had some kind of resurgence of interest after it disappeared from the screens, the evidence is poor - the (medium budget) movie barely took box office receipts as high as its budget (meaning it made a 50% loss), and the show's DVD sales were only high because they contained previously un-aired episodes. Fox certainly appears to have made the right decision to cancel the show.
If Fox had been as smart as Firefly fans claim it should have been then Firefly would never have had the green light. Fox would have continued with Dark Angel which already had a substantial audience and which Firefly replaced.
I must confess to being surprised most of Fox's critics don't "get it" when it comes to the complaints of constant cancellations of good shows. Those good shows would never have existed on other networks. The reason you got emotionally attached to them in the first place is because Fox tried them out. Alas, in the majority of cases, the shows really didn't have the audiences needed to keep them viable.
I'm not suggesting there aren't things Fox could do better, but to assume this show is going to be treated badly because Fox will do something wrong is inappropriate - the reality is that this show stands no chance of seeing the light of day in a parallel universe where Fox doesn't exist. They appear to be the one network willing to take major gambles. Good on them. And if the show is cancelled after a few episodes, just be glad you got the chance to see them at all.
It's somewhat harder to get consent for genetic modification, given the subject of the procedure will not exist until the experiment takes place.
Ok, all three of you (the GP, and your sibling poster), remember the question was about genetically engineered mice? Of the three, yours is the only one that hints that you read the "genetically engineered" part of the question, and even then, would the additional mobility make that much of a difference in helping spread the plague?
What are the military applications of these genetically engineered mice?
I'm not following your train of logic here. In general, the manuals for HDTVs recommend HDMI or component over all else if it's available, at least, that's what I saw in mine (with a whole set of "This is preferred, this is better, do this if you must, etc.) Three years ago, HDMI was practically non-existent, now it's in everything. It's the recommended way to hook things up. HDMI if there, component if no HDMI, S-Video if no component or HDMI, composite if no S-Video, Component, or HDMI, and (*snort*) antenna as a last resort.
I think it's great actually. Composite comprises of three cables which have to be plugged in correctly. Grandma does have a problem with that. HDMI is just one cable that does everything. Plug it in, it "just works". About the only way you could make it easier is if you removed the support for legacy standards (ie removed the component, S-Video, and composite sockets), and I think you'd be amongst the first to howl if that happened. So the idea that HDTVs and HD-DVD/Bluray players aren't "ready for the public" is as laughable as the old "GNU/Linux isn't ready for the desktop*" comments. Anyone who makes those kinds of comments has essentially made them based upon a brief assessment made three years ago based upon an incompetent install.
* Ubuntu 7.04 is unquestionably easier to use than Windows 9x, Me, XP and Vista. In some cases, it might be unsuitable for your desktop (in the same way that Windows may be unsuitable for many), or it may be that it doesn't support all your hardware properly (but let's not pretend Windows when not bundled with a computer doesn't have the same issue - and nobody claims Mac OS X isn't "ready for the desktop" and that barely supports anything...), but in a fair fight, Ubuntu is easier to use than Windows, more powerful than the latter, more reliable, less likely to be trojaned or infected by a virus (though that has a lot to do with the lack of users), and has equal application support albeit with strengths and weaknesses in different areas.
You're looking in the wrong place, the right place is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/{deleted page name}, in this case here.
Ta_bu_shi_da_yu's a Wikipedia admin who has a viewpoint that's useful to know. Additionally he's reverted at least one apparently unfair delete pointed out to him in this discussion, which should at least demonstrate good faith on his part. I appreciate your support, but I think your attack on Ta_bu_shi_da_yu is unjustified and inappropriate.
There's no irony in the above whatsoever. For Encarta or EB to have an article on "Bob the Angry Flower", Microsoft or Britannica has to pay professionals real money to research and write the article for the subject. And in the past, EB would have had the added problem of the size of the encyclopedia adding to its cost and manageability for end users. By comparison, in Wikipedia we're talking about articles that have already been written and contributed for free, that - if truly non-noteworthy - add fractions of a cent to the costs of running Wikipedia as an on-going operation. Bandwidth costs for an article nobody reads are non-existent, the only real cost is storage. How much does 10 kilobytes cost?
I'm not proposing (and didn't propose - I did the opposite) that there's no reason for AFDs at all, but I do believe that as deleting legitimate articles has a real cost and DOES undermine Wikipedia more than keeping a non-notable article, the discretion should be on the side of not deleting. Fast track processes for article deletion in particular need to be reviewed so only the narrowest of criteria can apply to them. That is not the case right now.
Personally I can't see how a periodically updated openly available webcomic is not a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia article in an environment such as Wikipedia's where the contribution cost is free and the maintenance cost is more or less proportional to the webcomic's notability. Unless the comic is being used as a wedge to pass by genuinely unencyclopedic content, there's no legitimate reason to delete such articles.
I'm not so sure the vote shown is an example of systematic failure, which would make your comments about how the system has changed appropriate. More this was apparent[1] administrator abuse. There was no apparent logic used to justify deleting votes beyond an apparently irrelevant and in-consistent contribution count. If admins are going to go out of their way to discount votes on apparently made-up criteria, then any systematic changes that encourage more discretion in how to pick votes would seem to me to be for the worse, not for the better.
I have to say I'm surprised at how quickly people are willing to rush to AFDs on Wikipedia. AFDs cause real damage to legitimate articles, and it's seriously questionable that Wikipedia is in any way undermined by a glut of articles on apparent trivia. At the very least, the "fast track" procedures need to be overhauled, and it shouldn't be assumed that people are going to be able to react in time to bogus fast track AFD procedures.