I betcha what we're seeing is the "new computer sales" preparing for the upcoming school year.
So, seeing as most computers sold ship with IE the school "sale" boom during the summer months preceeding the fall semester would account for a percentage increase.
But only a 33% cost reduction when they receive a immense overhead reduction.
Naw...I think our legislators should pass "the fair textbook reform law"
If I go back to school again, and buy a textbook. I am going to find how many errors there are. If there is an excessive amount (which there usually is) I am going to demand a full refund from the company because of the defective book.
I remember reading somewhere about utilizing water as a shield. The water layer would help block a large percentage of the radiation and could later be utilized upon landing. (A double practical concept.)
Also, I think the idea of a nuclear powered shield is a good concept. And it appears that radiation levels my fluctuate. So it may not be something needed at all times.
Lastly, how do we compensate for the international space station? i'm sure it has less "radiation" than deeper space...but still?
Not necessarily, employees have certain rights and expectactions with employment.
For example: I think if Microsoft fired Lee, then why should he not be able to seek alternative employment.
But let's address another aspect, it has becoming increasingly common for employer's NOT to fire people but to simply "cut their hours" or "downsize their position" or "cut off promised avenues of growth". In attempt to force said individual "out" without firing.
And although I do not believe any of those were done in this case. Mr. Lee may still be able of arguing that promises made by Microsoft were not kept. If he is stating that he was not being giving the leadership or placement he felt was deserved or perhaps agreed upon (not uncommon, individual is hired and told they're going to head a new x team after training - instead they find plans changed and they're now working as an individual and not in the role originally understood during hiring). It is understood that verbal agreements are still acknowledged by courts...though not as binding such an be used to show a breach or a appeasement against said contract.
As Microsoft is monopolistic and literally has a venture in almost every aspect of the programming field (OS, Browser, Media Player, Office Apps, Money, Games, PDA software, etc.) it is unfair to have a non-compete clause when you compete in every aspect of a given profession.
There was an accident on the highway, so all the traffic was getting off and driving thru my little residential neighborhood the 4 blocks to the next exit.
Anyways, the light was red, it's was raining (mostly a drizzle) and a cop cruiser was across the street. Several minutes pass - no change in light. I decide to take a right turn instead of going straight. But the two times I try I almost get into an accident. (You see I am stuck on an arching overpass and unable to see what is behind me due to the elevation of the bridge.) Deciding that it is more prudent to simply wait then risk an accident - I wait.
Still no change in the light. I try to peer into the police vehicle but find myself unable to see inside due to the rain. Okay, this is getting excessive. I've now been at this light several minutes (and I mean approaching 10 minutes) without an iouta of direction, no light change, nadda.
Finally, I see the police crusier roll forward toward the light control box. I am like "finally". So I wait for a while longer. A few more minutes....nothing!
After what felt like over 10 minutes (and I later realized was probably closer to 15) I decided that either the "light" or the "officer" was not functioning properly.
So I treated it as one is specified to treat a broken light. I treated it as if I had a STOP sign and the oncoming had right of way. I waited for a pause in traffic and "proceeded with caution".
So I get a block down and what do I see but colorful lights. The cop is in a whole tiff. I am like "Is there a problem officer..." He responded "You just ran a read light." I told him the light was not functioning. His response was he was manning it remotely. Which I believe - I just sincerely doubt if he was actually awake for most of the time. I told him I was going to fight it in court. He refused to give me his badge number - told me it was on the ticket. However, it was only partially written out.
(oh, might I add as I was driving back down the street a minute later the light turned red as soon as my truck reached the intersection...thankfully, 30 seconds later it was green and I could finally get on my way to work)
So this leads to court dates. Now we are really !@#$% up here in Connecticut.
First off, you have about 2 weeks to mail the ticket. Which I did promptly. It would over 6 months before I received any notification that they even received it.
Then, I called the DA office. I told them I did not want any plea bargain and that I wanted to go straight to trial. Doesn't matter of course.
They give you a court date or so you think. In truth, you take 1/2 day off from work and wait only to be called up and offered a plea bargain. If you turn down the plea bargain they give you another court date. When you ask them why? they inform you that they must get your record first.
WTF?
6 months, and they assign you a court date and do not have your record for the case?
So you come back a second time....they offer you a plea bargain once again. I turned it down....guess what? Yup...you guessed it!
They give you another court date (the excuse this time is that they have to subpeona the officer). Wait, okay no record the first time, no opposition.
So finally, I get a court date (on the third trip to the court). I argued my case on the following points:
- the purpose of the officer being there was to guide and direct traffic and minimise confusion, the officer clearly failed this role and in fact furthered the confusion at hand
- if the intent was to not change the light a detour should have been erected instead
- my last main point was a technical argument on justice. if one were stopped at a light and there was a no turn on red (and we all know full well a U-turn is illegal on a bridge). What is one to do if that light never turns green? You cannot justly tell me that I have to remain at that light forever? or commit a violation of the law? so please tell me - in that
2. Easily swappable batteries (each with a pretty impressive life themselves)
3. If you are going to bill it as a photo viewer, provide a decent size screen with a protective eacily replaceable cover
4. Good menu system, a nice jog wheel like on the Canon 20D would be great for scrolling. But have a switch that "locks" the control functionality so it's not getting pressed in your pocket while walking
5. Allow for the drive to be an "external" drive and plug in via USB and store any file...not just the one's it plays or displays.
6. Durability...people don't want cheap flimsy feeling products, not when they drop a few hundred $$$
7. Brush metal baby....spend the extra few $ for thin layer of brushed titanium or aluminum, etc. Perhaps with a slip on rubber sports grip.
8. B&W LCD is so passe.... *lol* and if you're going to do a monochrome display, tint it so it's easy to see.
9. Ergonomics is nice....but weird rounded easy to hold products SUCK!!! Cause very few people are running around holding these things. Rather they carry them in purses, on belts, etc. Thus flat and easily storabe is what is HOT
10. Intelligent... Give me a unit that a) can be plugged into the computer and download the album covers for display from CDDB. Give me a unit that can can be plugged into pictbridge cameras, etc. And "download" all the images to be stored on the unit. Providing a portable "large" photo warehouse.
Of course this is in the U.K. but we have similar issues in the U.S. however, in the U.S. our foundation on such matters is somewhat different.
And that's why I have no problem with downloading music....if the royalty holders are going to steal from the people of the United States. Than I have no problem stealing back what is rightfully ours.
If it can cost Morgan-Stanley $1.5 billion for not storing email. And 90% of email is SPAM. The risk of deleting/filtering SPAM and losing valid email is going to be too risky.
Therefore, it will become extremely cost effective for Morgan-Stanley (and other large firms) to hire lobbyists to make unsolicited SPAM (with no valid return email addresses) illegal, criminal, and enforced.
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
- Al Gore
If Bush said the same thing, he would never be allowed off the hook and would receive 10x the bashing. I find it crap, that if Clinton or Gore say something poorly worded and/or easily misinterpreted everyone here tries to defend them.
But if Bush says something, even if the most common interpretation is acceptable, but the wording could be read a different way...it's attack attack attack.
I am sorry but I still think "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." is a bit of an outlandish statement any way you read it.
If Bush said "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating clean hydrogen powered cars." People would jump all over him...and at least in that case he earmarked some $6 billion over a period of a several years.
"Not pass the buck of onto some God figure" [[[One of the main differences between evolution and ID. Evolution says this just kinda fell into place randomly. ID denotes that someone essentially wrote the underlying code. There are even deist atheists who find the latter makes much more sense. There are evolutionists who still believe that intelligent design was necessary. Why?
Let me ask you this....a lot of us here are programmers. Have you ever just set a brick on your keyboard and watched it randomly generate compilable code? No...I don't think you have. But that is exactly what the main group behind evolution expects people to believe. Intelligent Design just adds in that some entity (God, advanced aliens, whatever) programmed the code. And is this really so hard to believe as mankind itself begins to enter the realm of "genetic coding". How long until we venture out into the stars? How long until we genetically code an animal to fit a particular habitat on some hence unknown planet and it reaches a point to question "how did we come about?" Sure, we're left with the unanswered question "where did the designer come from" but it's a fair pairing to the question that is left in general "where did the universe come from". One just looks a step back and says "the particular universe we live from came from a particular designer" What lies outside of that, I do not know.
I think there was movie called the 13th Floor (could be wrong title). In which a man creates a virtual world in the 1950's era. He was, essentially "the creator of that world" only to discover that he was a creation inside a similar world. One from our future. Maybe such is that case....but those questions are currently unanswerable by science. ]]]
"what about all these fossils?" [[[They have a logical explanation...they believe most of the fossil formations occurred during the flood. I do find it interesting that you have all these fossils of fish with erect fins, etc. These fossils show clear evidence of a quick burial alive.]]]
"Scientists have clear evidence of the evolutionary process throughout history via these fossils..." [[[That is still a much debated view in the eyes of many. There has not been any transitory examples.]]]
"where exactly did they come from if the planet is in fact only 6000-odd years old? I've asked creationists this question, and they've actually replied that they were placed here by God to test our faith." [[[Than you talked to poorly knowledgeful creationists. First off, the age of the earth. 6,000??? or 6,000,000,000??? Well, we understand that time is relative. In order to determine the rate and speed of time one would have to know what God's mass and velocity is. Furthermore, many creationists have serious doubts about the accuracy of dating methods used on fossils. There are two major reasons. 1) because of many known cases of inaccuracy 2) because there are some who question whether "C" is truly constant and whether it might be slowing down. There is even growing question with regards to this issue within secular scientific communities.]]]
"Now, I don't know about you, but I have a serious problem with this hypothesis. I for one refuse to believe that God would give us brains capable of rational, abstract thought, and then plant fake clues to punish those of us who had the gall to use those brains to attempt to understand the world we live in." [[[Guess what....most creationists agree with you.]]]
"Of course, this is the same god who told Abraham to sacrifice his only son to Him, and waited until the knife was actually descending to say "Psych!"." [[[And if you understood that he was giving an example of a future event and the purpose and intent than it's not such a hard thing to understand. In fact, if you go and read those chapters you'll discover a very interesting clue to this fact. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac. But any well read scriptural scholar would recall that Abraham in fact had "two sons". T
I can do in which one of the possible outcomes disproves the existance of God or the theory of ID
[[[really, why not lay out an experiment for me that can disprove the numerous theories put forth by evolutionists that try to explain what happened before the big bang (you know, I mean here we have essentially nothing or a tiny super-singularity but what was before. I've heard a half dozen theories but I don't see a discernable test for any of them.
Guess by your own standard, such evolutionary answers to the creation of the universe are in fact not science.;)
"Co-gaming" besides some top down revisionist versions of Gauntlet (Baldur's Gate, FF, etc.) there is very little co-play. And even less in the first person shooter mode. And even less still anything beyond 2 people.
I got board with deathmatch back in 1994. I've been wanting to see a game that allows for at least 4-players (possibly more when online) to play that requires users to play co-operatively and intelligently (not just unload a thousand rounds everywhere).
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory sounds like the right path but they only put a few side levels. Now if someone did an entire game in such fashion I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
I. I think it's funny that in the past there has been great opposition to this. And only now after Microsoft announced that it would be a major offering throughout many Xbox 2 Live! games does SONY seem to alter their position on this.
II. I am just waiting for some "virtual nation" to have their GNP exceed that of real nations. "In the news today, the virtual nation of "Eschboxia Livia" has exceeded the GNP of Poland. Much question has arose since their recent purchase of an entire island in the Bahamas as to whether Eschboxia can in deed be called a virtual nation any longer.
Netflix isn't dying...it's in fact the market leader. But it's got some potential competitors who are traditionally "killer competition"
WalMart - kills competitors in markets it enters
Blockbuster - killed off most of the mom & pop rental stores
Amazon - is the dotcom that survived the dot boom/bust
Netflix - is the company that came up with a new business model and grew
However, investor/industry analysts are nervous about it because they don't know if it has staying power. There is strong potential competition (which Netflix has more than held it's own against). And there is the upcoming (for certain eventually just unknown time of arrival) of download on demand.
What Netflix has going for it in the industry. - established - market dominance - market presence - best interface
So what does Amazon get and offer Netflix. Amazon will save hundreds of millions of dollars. It will also become an "umbrella" of sorts to the investor community who will see an Amazonian partnership as a assurety of long-term livability for Netflix. And guarantee a mutually beneficial symbiotic advertising relationship. Got to Netflix from Amazon, and from Amazon to Netflix.
Would be to have the show Star Fleet Academy feature new young characters and to have some of the old characters as instructors and guest lecturers/characters. (Picard, Spock, etc.)
Just to fan the flames...it's not modelling evol
on
Evolving Lego Mindstorms
·
· Score: 4, Funny
You're in fact modelling a variant of intelligent design.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I betcha what we're seeing is the "new computer sales" preparing for the upcoming school year.
So, seeing as most computers sold ship with IE the school "sale" boom during the summer months preceeding the fall semester would account for a percentage increase.
*shrug*
Just a thought...
But only a 33% cost reduction when they receive a immense overhead reduction.
Naw...I think our legislators should pass "the fair textbook reform law"
If I go back to school again, and buy a textbook. I am going to find how many errors there are. If there is an excessive amount (which there usually is) I am going to demand a full refund from the company because of the defective book.
Perhaps...
But 10 to 1, I bet you that "sword sales" increased greatly during the last few years with the release of the LotR trilogy.
I remember reading somewhere about utilizing water as a shield. The water layer would help block a large percentage of the radiation and could later be utilized upon landing. (A double practical concept.)
Also, I think the idea of a nuclear powered shield is a good concept. And it appears that radiation levels my fluctuate. So it may not be something needed at all times.
Lastly, how do we compensate for the international space station? i'm sure it has less "radiation" than deeper space...but still?
Or last alternative - we just send Russians...
Not necessarily, employees have certain rights and expectactions with employment.
For example: I think if Microsoft fired Lee, then why should he not be able to seek alternative employment.
But let's address another aspect, it has becoming increasingly common for employer's NOT to fire people but to simply "cut their hours" or "downsize their position" or "cut off promised avenues of growth". In attempt to force said individual "out" without firing.
And although I do not believe any of those were done in this case. Mr. Lee may still be able of arguing that promises made by Microsoft were not kept. If he is stating that he was not being giving the leadership or placement he felt was deserved or perhaps agreed upon (not uncommon, individual is hired and told they're going to head a new x team after training - instead they find plans changed and they're now working as an individual and not in the role originally understood during hiring). It is understood that verbal agreements are still acknowledged by courts...though not as binding such an be used to show a breach or a appeasement against said contract.
As Microsoft is monopolistic and literally has a venture in almost every aspect of the programming field (OS, Browser, Media Player, Office Apps, Money, Games, PDA software, etc.) it is unfair to have a non-compete clause when you compete in every aspect of a given profession.
There was an accident on the highway, so all the traffic was getting off and driving thru my little residential neighborhood the 4 blocks to the next exit.
Anyways, the light was red, it's was raining (mostly a drizzle) and a cop cruiser was across the street. Several minutes pass - no change in light. I decide to take a right turn instead of going straight. But the two times I try I almost get into an accident. (You see I am stuck on an arching overpass and unable to see what is behind me due to the elevation of the bridge.) Deciding that it is more prudent to simply wait then risk an accident - I wait.
Still no change in the light. I try to peer into the police vehicle but find myself unable to see inside due to the rain. Okay, this is getting excessive. I've now been at this light several minutes (and I mean approaching 10 minutes) without an iouta of direction, no light change, nadda.
Finally, I see the police crusier roll forward toward the light control box. I am like "finally". So I wait for a while longer. A few more minutes....nothing!
After what felt like over 10 minutes (and I later realized was probably closer to 15) I decided that either the "light" or the "officer" was not functioning properly.
So I treated it as one is specified to treat a broken light. I treated it as if I had a STOP sign and the oncoming had right of way. I waited for a pause in traffic and "proceeded with caution".
So I get a block down and what do I see but colorful lights. The cop is in a whole tiff. I am like "Is there a problem officer..." He responded "You just ran a read light." I told him the light was not functioning. His response was he was manning it remotely. Which I believe - I just sincerely doubt if he was actually awake for most of the time. I told him I was going to fight it in court. He refused to give me his badge number - told me it was on the ticket. However, it was only partially written out.
(oh, might I add as I was driving back down the street a minute later the light turned red as soon as my truck reached the intersection...thankfully, 30 seconds later it was green and I could finally get on my way to work)
So this leads to court dates. Now we are really !@#$% up here in Connecticut.
First off, you have about 2 weeks to mail the ticket. Which I did promptly. It would over 6 months before I received any notification that they even received it.
Then, I called the DA office. I told them I did not want any plea bargain and that I wanted to go straight to trial. Doesn't matter of course.
They give you a court date or so you think. In truth, you take 1/2 day off from work and wait only to be called up and offered a plea bargain. If you turn down the plea bargain they give you another court date. When you ask them why? they inform you that they must get your record first.
WTF?
6 months, and they assign you a court date and do not have your record for the case?
So you come back a second time....they offer you a plea bargain once again. I turned it down....guess what? Yup...you guessed it!
They give you another court date (the excuse this time is that they have to subpeona the officer). Wait, okay no record the first time, no opposition.
So finally, I get a court date (on the third trip to the court). I argued my case on the following points:
- the purpose of the officer being there was to guide and direct traffic and minimise confusion, the officer clearly failed this role and in fact furthered the confusion at hand
- if the intent was to not change the light a detour should have been erected instead
- my last main point was a technical argument on justice. if one were stopped at a light and there was a no turn on red (and we all know full well a U-turn is illegal on a bridge). What is one to do if that light never turns green? You cannot justly tell me that I have to remain at that light forever? or commit a violation of the law? so please tell me - in that
I think we should establish an X-prize to send his corpse to the moon for burial.
Where's my bloody red "mars.google.com" :(
Give me the following:
1. 100gig drive
2. Easily swappable batteries (each with a pretty impressive life themselves)
3. If you are going to bill it as a photo viewer, provide a decent size screen with a protective eacily replaceable cover
4. Good menu system, a nice jog wheel like on the Canon 20D would be great for scrolling. But have a switch that "locks" the control functionality so it's not getting pressed in your pocket while walking
5. Allow for the drive to be an "external" drive and plug in via USB and store any file...not just the one's it plays or displays.
6. Durability...people don't want cheap flimsy feeling products, not when they drop a few hundred $$$
7. Brush metal baby....spend the extra few $ for thin layer of brushed titanium or aluminum, etc. Perhaps with a slip on rubber sports grip.
8. B&W LCD is so passe.... *lol* and if you're going to do a monochrome display, tint it so it's easy to see.
9. Ergonomics is nice....but weird rounded easy to hold products SUCK!!! Cause very few people are running around holding these things. Rather they carry them in purses, on belts, etc. Thus flat and easily storabe is what is HOT
10. Intelligent...
Give me a unit that a) can be plugged into the computer and download the album covers for display from CDDB. Give me a unit that can can be plugged into pictbridge cameras, etc. And "download" all the images to be stored on the unit. Providing a portable "large" photo warehouse.
Yup...you just got my $700
Of course this is in the U.K. but we have similar issues in the U.S. however, in the U.S. our foundation on such matters is somewhat different.
And that's why I have no problem with downloading music....if the royalty holders are going to steal from the people of the United States. Than I have no problem stealing back what is rightfully ours.
Think about it...
If it can cost Morgan-Stanley $1.5 billion for not storing email. And 90% of email is SPAM. The risk of deleting/filtering SPAM and losing valid email is going to be too risky.
Therefore, it will become extremely cost effective for Morgan-Stanley (and other large firms) to hire lobbyists to make unsolicited SPAM (with no valid return email addresses) illegal, criminal, and enforced.
My $1,700 of stock which dropped to like $1,000 looks to now be at $1,800 :)
Expect one of those "upgradeable" hard drives to in fact be a media player!
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
- Al Gore
If Bush said the same thing, he would never be allowed off the hook and would receive 10x the bashing. I find it crap, that if Clinton or Gore say something poorly worded and/or easily misinterpreted everyone here tries to defend them.
But if Bush says something, even if the most common interpretation is acceptable, but the wording could be read a different way...it's attack attack attack.
I am sorry but I still think "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." is a bit of an outlandish statement any way you read it.
If Bush said "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating clean hydrogen powered cars." People would jump all over him...and at least in that case he earmarked some $6 billion over a period of a several years.
*sheesh*
"Not pass the buck of onto some God figure"
[[[One of the main differences between evolution and ID. Evolution says this just kinda fell into place randomly. ID denotes that someone essentially wrote the underlying code. There are even deist atheists who find the latter makes much more sense. There are evolutionists who still believe that intelligent design was necessary. Why?
Let me ask you this....a lot of us here are programmers. Have you ever just set a brick on your keyboard and watched it randomly generate compilable code? No...I don't think you have. But that is exactly what the main group behind evolution expects people to believe. Intelligent Design just adds in that some entity (God, advanced aliens, whatever) programmed the code. And is this really so hard to believe as mankind itself begins to enter the realm of "genetic coding". How long until we venture out into the stars? How long until we genetically code an animal to fit a particular habitat on some hence unknown planet and it reaches a point to question "how did we come about?" Sure, we're left with the unanswered question "where did the designer come from" but it's a fair pairing to the question that is left in general "where did the universe come from". One just looks a step back and says "the particular universe we live from came from a particular designer" What lies outside of that, I do not know.
I think there was movie called the 13th Floor (could be wrong title). In which a man creates a virtual world in the 1950's era. He was, essentially "the creator of that world" only to discover that he was a creation inside a similar world. One from our future. Maybe such is that case....but those questions are currently unanswerable by science.
]]]
"what about all these fossils?"
[[[They have a logical explanation...they believe most of the fossil formations occurred during the flood. I do find it interesting that you have all these fossils of fish with erect fins, etc. These fossils show clear evidence of a quick burial alive.]]]
"Scientists have clear evidence of the evolutionary process throughout history via these fossils..."
[[[That is still a much debated view in the eyes of many. There has not been any transitory examples.]]]
"where exactly did they come from if the planet is in fact only 6000-odd years old? I've asked creationists this question, and they've actually replied that they were placed here by God to test our faith."
[[[Than you talked to poorly knowledgeful creationists. First off, the age of the earth. 6,000??? or 6,000,000,000??? Well, we understand that time is relative. In order to determine the rate and speed of time one would have to know what God's mass and velocity is. Furthermore, many creationists have serious doubts about the accuracy of dating methods used on fossils. There are two major reasons. 1) because of many known cases of inaccuracy 2) because there are some who question whether "C" is truly constant and whether it might be slowing down. There is even growing question with regards to this issue within secular scientific communities.]]]
"Now, I don't know about you, but I have a serious problem with this hypothesis. I for one refuse to believe that God would give us brains capable of rational, abstract thought, and then plant fake clues to punish those of us who had the gall to use those brains to attempt to understand the world we live in."
[[[Guess what....most creationists agree with you.]]]
"Of course, this is the same god who told Abraham to sacrifice his only son to Him, and waited until the knife was actually descending to say "Psych!"."
[[[And if you understood that he was giving an example of a future event and the purpose and intent than it's not such a hard thing to understand. In fact, if you go and read those chapters you'll discover a very interesting clue to this fact. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac. But any well read scriptural scholar would recall that Abraham in fact had "two sons". T
I can do in which one of the possible outcomes disproves the existance of God or the theory of ID
;)
[[[really, why not lay out an experiment for me that can disprove the numerous theories put forth by evolutionists that try to explain what happened before the big bang (you know, I mean here we have essentially nothing or a tiny super-singularity but what was before. I've heard a half dozen theories but I don't see a discernable test for any of them.
Guess by your own standard, such evolutionary answers to the creation of the universe are in fact not science.
And the biggest gap...
"Co-gaming" besides some top down revisionist versions of Gauntlet (Baldur's Gate, FF, etc.) there is very little co-play. And even less in the first person shooter mode. And even less still anything beyond 2 people.
I got board with deathmatch back in 1994. I've been wanting to see a game that allows for at least 4-players (possibly more when online) to play that requires users to play co-operatively and intelligently (not just unload a thousand rounds everywhere).
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory sounds like the right path but they only put a few side levels. Now if someone did an entire game in such fashion I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Tell her to give birth in the theatre and then she'll give birth to a jedi....
(mind you, the green skin coloring, pointy ears and dimunitive side will be rather permanent unlike most infants he shall not grow much taller)
Okay, I think there better be a helluva lot under the hood because I'm not paying $400 for a new GUI theme.
But that said, I much prefer the Longhorn theme to anything I've seen to date. I thought it easy on my eyes. Sleek. Mechanical. Sexy.
*shrug*
I. I think it's funny that in the past there has been great opposition to this. And only now after Microsoft announced that it would be a major offering throughout many Xbox 2 Live! games does SONY seem to alter their position on this.
II. I am just waiting for some "virtual nation" to have their GNP exceed that of real nations. "In the news today, the virtual nation of "Eschboxia Livia" has exceeded the GNP of Poland. Much question has arose since their recent purchase of an entire island in the Bahamas as to whether Eschboxia can in deed be called a virtual nation any longer.
They allow for it so long as it is non-profit...
Although, I hear this one was looked at and watched very carefully....
Netflix isn't dying...it's in fact the market leader. But it's got some potential competitors who are traditionally "killer competition"
WalMart - kills competitors in markets it enters
Blockbuster - killed off most of the mom & pop rental stores
Amazon - is the dotcom that survived the dot boom/bust
Netflix - is the company that came up with a new business model and grew
However, investor/industry analysts are nervous about it because they don't know if it has staying power. There is strong potential competition (which Netflix has more than held it's own against). And there is the upcoming (for certain eventually just unknown time of arrival) of download on demand.
What Netflix has going for it in the industry.
- established
- market dominance
- market presence
- best interface
So what does Amazon get and offer Netflix. Amazon will save hundreds of millions of dollars. It will also become an "umbrella" of sorts to the investor community who will see an Amazonian partnership as a assurety of long-term livability for Netflix. And guarantee a mutually beneficial symbiotic advertising relationship. Got to Netflix from Amazon, and from Amazon to Netflix.
- The Saj
Would be to have the show Star Fleet Academy feature new young characters and to have some of the old characters as instructors and guest lecturers/characters. (Picard, Spock, etc.)
You're in fact modelling a variant of intelligent design. ;)