when you could snap a x486 chip on top of your existing x386 chip?
My father when that route to upgrade an IBM 65SX. I was amazed something so simple actually worked. It gave new life to an old machine.
I think what prevents most people from ever replacing the chip in their system is that by the time they want to they are so frustrated with their old system they just want to replace it entirely. By frustrated I mean they have loaded it down with so much junk it is just a bear to use.
Also throw in the fact that many systems are really tight fits inside. Then top it off with heat sinks that can be a royal pain to remove or put on, all the while making you feel as if your going to break something and people won't even try.
Back in the 386 days when the whole machine cost big money a processor upgrade was a viable alternative for mom and dad. Today when you can get a new machine for less than $200 after rebates why would they bother?
I can get every podcast I download off of iTunes by another means already. I use iTunes because it is easier. I certainly don't need it. I can have the iTunes client find the podcasts I download manually and add them to my library.
Now, if they start getting exclusive content, or worse making content I can get free elsewhere only available through them I will just move on. Podcasts are successful because they are free expression. iTunes gains more by providing them for free than by attempting to charge. Hell most of the time I get a song off of iTunes is because I was there updating my podcasts! Well if they want me to pay for podcasts I will not be visiting them for those podcasts and at the same time not buying new songs or videos (both music/tv) as often as I was before.
It was inevitiable in one way or another, there was too much opportunity to make money off of them somehow.
UPS will not normally deliver something early. You get exactly what you pay for, no bonus delivery. FedEx will deliver overnight something 2nd day if your in the same city, UPS does not. As such I choose FedEx 2nd day for shipments across town as I know it comes in the day after it ships - not two days.
I have tracked UPS packages that sat for 2 days at a local depot all because they were not supposed to be deliver any earlier because it wasn't paid for.
people seem content on having the very same government provide them with many services that they used to pay for. They expect the government to teach their children, manage their retirement, manage their prescription drugs, and some even want it to take care of all their needs.
So, what do you expect? The politicians will have government protect you from what they deem is wrong as you have already giving over so much control to them so far. People are making it the government's business because they don't want the responsibility. Those same damn people are the ones who will lose us our rights unless we can find politicians who understand what a free society truly is. They come at us from the left and the right - that they come from both sides escapes some people
While I like the specs of the new MacBooks, at their price point they don't quite cut it. Perhaps the second revision will make changes. Its just so hard to justify $600+ MacTax for 1lb of less weight and a few minor extras. Case in point CompUSA is selling an Acer duo, (1280x800 display x1400 graphics, 2GB memory, 120gb hdd, for 1299). While I understand that to some their is better engineering in the Mac I doubt the assembly lines used by either is much different). Yeah I know, its the software/experience/quality. There are levels to which all of us assign imporantance to these items. However most of it is opinion and we can all find pro and con examples to back our case. To me the justification of owning one of the new Intel based macs is being able to run any x86 OS.
If they deliver a duo-iBook, say with 13" screen and similar graphics ability I may find my next notebook. Throw out the iSight and give me a modem:). The excuse of not being able to load XP has been pretty much solved as I can find numerous methods of doing so. I really could put to use a laptop that can boot the big 3 OSes.
iBook dream, 1599 for 1.66 duo, x1600 256mb, fw400, usb2, upto 2gb memory, 13" 1280x800, etc. I don't know Apple's screen sizing principles and heard the new Macbook deviated from established norms (is that true?)
The world of Mac is getting closer to me everyday...
this ignores keyboard monitoring which has been reported several times by others.
Face it, there are companies that will do whatever they want when it comes to monitoring their employees. In some cases it will be done out of fear of audits (think SOX compliance in the US) and in others it will be done to protect vital information that could damage the corporation if it gets out (think trade secrets or even dirty laundry)
I bet there are a few that don't even permit cell phones. However while they do I certainly would take advantage of the privacy it can gain me. Its my life and yes my life continues even while I am work.
I'll give you the number one reason why I am changing to a phone that supports IM.
WORK!
With all the monitoring they do at my place of work and worse, what I read being done at others, I will take steps to insure my privacy.
Phone calls can be monitored, Internet usage usually is, IM can be as well, and e-mail is scanned, some times censored, and even saved.
With IM on my phone I can stay in touch with those who need me without the interruption of an actual phone call as well as keep my life private from my employer. Also IM messages tend to be more to the point that some phone calls can be. Granted there are lots of "silly" one liners but people tend to refrain from having never ending conversations with them
Well here in the states we have had politicians use information gleaned from the IRS to harrass political opponents. I am quite sure they use other government agencies.
The argument against loss of privacy is false for the most part. People willingly give up personal information on an almost daily basis. Every financial transaction short of those paid in cash is tracked. Worse some information about your financial well being is available through government agencies through "openess laws". One of my ex-girlfriends tracked me down using a publically available database on housing tax assessments. She could not find me any other way, this I know because she told me how she did it. When I went and checked it as very annoying as to how much information was available. From the date of purchase, price of purchase, to my current assessment and status of payment of my taxes.
My biggest worry about compulsory id cards and the tracking of data they entail is that there are groups who will find a method, legal or illegal, to obtain this information. If anything, those in the government may find themselves even more exposed. Worse are those in government who will create laws to exempt themselves from what is required of regular citizens. The Congress of The United States has a wonderful and colorful history of excepting itself from some of the legislation it imposes on the citizens.
what is killing batteries faster is the screens. Throw in CD and DVD drives which some people seem to think run on magic and you have the recipe for short battery life. One industry that needs to wake up is the game industry which loves to have CD/DVDs that must be loaded to play and are accessed during play. Hello!
The processors already have technology to slow down when not being used to their fullest extent. Now what is needed are methods to reduce reliance on spinning up the harddrive; or make it more efficient; and new screen technologies that are not as energy intensive.
Would you put up with more ghosting of the display for longer battery life? Most probably would not as they would associate that problem with inferior technology.
The key difference here is that iTunes and the iPod are wildly popular.
What I find to be the issue is that I cannot get their DRM on any non-Apple product. I am quite sure if it was available someone would have licensed it. This leads me to believe that either they are not licensing Fairplay or setting the cost too high for anyone else to be competitive.
Just like with their OS they are locking out competitors. Unlike their PC line the iPod/iTunes combination is immensely popular. In the US they are near if not over 3/4 of the market. Since they control both ends of their market (hardware and service) they are actually in a stronger position than Microsoft. Unlike the PC world you don't have a valid alternative to iTunes if you own an iPod and vica versa.
Apple should be required to license FairPlay for a reasonable cost. It is anything but Fair now. Apple is protecting their margin in the US by keeping the competition from competing. I would love some competition to iPods, bring those prices down. That may be the key to the lawsuit, since you cannot compete with Apple they can dictate the market prices so strictly.
First I seriously doubt they can truly measure the "spikes" many centuries ago as accurately as we can now. Just as we could not count the true number of hurricanes and tropical storms a mere 50 years ago. Yeah its warming, but then what explains the "Medieval Warm Period"? I want to know. If they can explain that then perhaps they can see a correlation with today or point out why today is different.
Yet they will only use that older "warm period" as a reference and never explain it. The explanation will be cast aside as "meaningless to the context of the discussion" which is bunk because there is no discussion; its ideaology. For too many the Global Warming issue is taking on aspects of a religion. You either believe or your branded as a heretic, and heaven forbid those doing the branding have someone with money or in the press on their side. Your view will always be out of context if presented as all.
After reading the article I am more curious as to why a warming trend was so pronounced that we can easily identify its range way back when. If we knew the whys of it occuring back then it might give us insight into what is happening today.
The big hang up I have with software I get online is that they usually want me to pay the same retail price as if I bought the boxed item. This forms a big disconnect in my head which essentially drives me to buy the box set instead.
One area that would certainly benefit is the mmog games. There is little real reason to buy the base software but that model is still used regardless. people with slow connections will be at a loss but even after months of release these people who do require boxed versions would be back in the same boat as many game updates easily overwhelm dialup connections. This is what probably holds back consoles with harddrives - how do you deliver games where storage isn't a given?
If the industry wants to change direction they will need to realize we will not pay the same price. Yes I know that publishers make up their money with new releases but something has got to give.
what i fear will happen is that we will be paying the box price for over the line delivery and a new upcharge for the box version. the industry will take a grand idea and exploit it in the worst possible method.
I think where he was going is that there is little room for than a few major mmogs to exist at any one time.
While it can be argued what a successful mmog is it all comes down to what class of developer you are. To the indie, who arguably at the lower end of the spectrum a game with 1 to 2k subscribers is very successful; at the level they compete at. Where as you get to the level of where games like UO, EQ, and WOW are at and the whole meaning of successful changes.
Another view is that the situation of what was occuring in the late 90s really hasn't changed much to this day. There were many small players back then, in fact that was the market. It wasn't until M59 that gamers and developers began to understand that larger audiences were really possible. Then comes UO and suddenly you have the breakthrough. Where before everyone was competeing at the same level you now suddenly have two. Before EQ it was UO in its own class; and no I don't consider M59 to be in that class; and everyone else.
Then comes EQ which furthers the difference between the tiers. Throw in DAOC, AC, and others and the tiering of the market is complete. So while you can have "successful" indies and such they aren't really any different than the muds/mushes of the 90s. They aren't competeing at the same level as the big fish. The pool can support lots of little fish as they go unnoticed by many, its the big fish that have to compete more vigorously.
The advancements generated to put men on Mars are not all known to us at this time. Just as we did not know the effects of going to the moon in the 60s.
Is it a boondoggle to set hard goals? If man is going to have a presence in space then we need to start the work now. Sure we've been to the moon before but staying there is a whole new ballgame. Orbit? Been there, done that, hell we are practically trapped in it.
Robots to the stars? Sure, but until we start pushing ourselves out there all we are going to have is the naysayers holding us back forever. Get there and then the naysayers can off to their next project.
I suggest to quite a few/. readers that if any other leader had proposed going to Mars and the Moon again it would have been received a whole lot differently. NASA is finally again moving forward, we finally have someone who killed that damn shuttle program. Can you imagine being saddled with that damn system for another 20 years? The rest of the world would have been watching us from up there instead of looking to the stars to find us.
Sometimes good science requires setting and then obtaining goals that others find silly or wasteful. Go look in history back at many of the major discoveries. You will find quite a few many labeled as folly until it was done
It is closer to Elite than Starflight. There really isn't any mystery out there it has turned into mostly politics with some really big battles to sort out the disagreements.
I have seen nothing since Starflight that compares well and certainly nothing in the mmorpg realm.
I work in a world where a variation of the PowerPC drives a business. From iSeries (AS/400 new name) to xSeries and eventually the pSeries. The processor and the technology behind it are simply amazing. We went from 48bit to 64bit computing in the late 90s without recompiling or any such nonsense because iSeries engineers separated the processor from the OS. The tech has always been there. We have PowerPC powered thin clients as well - fanless to boot!
Switching to the Intel platform allowed Apple to get those sitting on the fence waiting for the next greatest thing to have a reason to buy a new Apple computer. It will even garner more buyers from the previously Intel-Only world in the form of linux and windows geeks. Continuing the PowerPC line would not generate the boost in revenue Steve needed. There are only so many variations of the iPod they can crank out before someone either starts to truly compete (overseas the iPod saturation level is only near 40%) or the market moves to further integration perhaps out of Apple's area of expertise.
I know its working, almost everyone of my friends who have Macs are going to buy into the new machines. The laptops are where its going to be the biggest until the mini comes out intel flavored. After that IntelMini comes out I expect another surge once someone shows Linux and Windows running on it easily.
The NANO never made sense for its cost compared to regular iPods. What made sense is having a screen as well as no moving parts. $149 is almost an impulse buy these days in this market.
I can easily make a play list or two to for times when the nano is more relevant than the full blown iPod. Any truly physical sport comes to mind. I have had my iPod take unplanned jumps to the ground that made me flinch (and reboot it more than once). I would feel much better knowing there isn't something that might suffer serious damage in a fall in there.
This sounds like it was written specifically for lawyers to bring more Class Action lawsuits against companies and reap big rewards for themselves. Here is a noose, please put your neck in it.
How long after they require all this tracking till they specify how many of X applicants you must have to obtain a federal contract? I would figure only a few years.
The only reason to track diversity is to punish when it does not meet that requirement of the day.
By going Intel they almost guarantee that a lot of their users will feel compelled to upgrade. While in the laptop range the upgrade issue can almost be moot, those with desktops may feel less pressure now but companies may end up forcing the issue on them by not having non-universal editions in the future.
This change does Apple very well, at the expense of many of their users. Hopefully they will be able garner new users as well. If it were easier to run *nix/Windows I bet the sales would be much higher.
The effect a nuke would have on the economy of the US and the world would be devastating. The question is, are there countries with leaders fanatical enough to do it?
Unfortunately I think there are.
This shield was never designed to deal with what Russia could lob at us. Putin just comes out with speeches actings AS IF we were actually trying to defend from Russia. He has to do this as the sorry state of their military has to be kept from their people. What better way than to latch on US stories of missile defense with some of their own propoganda?
I don't think you can put a cost on what a strike would cost.
Actually I find it harder to get people to fix the bug after its been identificed. While some of our maintenance programmers may get around to it most of the programmers are more interested in writing new code or major changes to an existing program. Fixing bugs isn't as glamorous as doing something new.
The other side is that you can fix the bug but dependancies may introduce something new that is as bad or worse. That leads the fixing programmers into a bind, that of it being an obvious fix but having to make sure what they doesn't lead to more. You then have people clamoring for their heads because they are taking to long or going for their heads after the fix because something was missed.
Source code availability to the public isn't going to do THAT much more to help find the bugs. Given our present day environment it would lead to exploitation of more bugs. There are far more people out there who would want to damage products than help. Besides, if bugs were easier to identify if the source was available many of the OSS programs should be bug free, eh?:)
that you have to hold the whole world liable for the fix. Kyoto did not do this and that invalidates it. The Western world countries have gone to great extents to clean up their environments, the US is nearly a whole different country in regards to the environment since the 70s. Places where pollution was obvious but ignored are now safe.
Blaming the issue of non-compliance on oil and republicans is just playing stupid politics. If anything it is the standard lame attempt to make it appear one has a valid point but in fact doesn't.
With both China and India gearing up their economies nothing we do in the West is going to have a measurable impact. China is coming up like the old Eastern Soviet states did, ramping up without regard for the environment or people around them. You want to find the worst abuses of the environment go look towards former Soviet states. Some of those were frightening. Going on a trip and being told to stay physically away from rivers is not a great way to encourage tourists to return.
We have NASA ice cores that show more wild swings in our temperatures and more extremes than we see now. We constantly get contradicting reports about the speed, effect, and even the cause of Global Warming. I fully expect within a month or two if not sooner to have another report laying the blame on some new man made source we "just noticed". Perhaps a report claiming even more dire issues or a faster occurence of them?
After a time it gets old. What sinks the Global Warming cause more than anything is that even the GW side cannot agree on all the causes let alone all its effect. The latest report/study/article always seems to be the one with issues most glom onto while they totally ignore past articles. Heaven forbid any article that attempts to refute any GW "theorey" as the writers will be villified. There is no allowance for the other side in this argument and that by itself damages the pro-GW side even more. People have to come to understand that when one side consistently paints the other with hostile terms, actions, and name calling that the side doing so isn't telling the whole truth.
Get the whole world involved or blame the whole world. Singling out the US gets very tiring. All the world done in the US and elsewhere over the last 30 years fixing the enviornment are going to be lost as long as China and the East are ignored.
Seriously. Rare should mean only a few can exist in the entire world. In MMORPG parlance rare means you just have to farm the same damn mob over and over for it to drop. Nothing is Rare/Epic in WOW. It just takes longer to get. Hell most 60s are equipped in rares/epics.
Worse, its an ever escalating arms race. They keep out doing the last quest and now you have scads of level 60s running around with items that normal level 60 content can't threaten and worse, in PvP anyone not equipped on the same level is just shit out of luck.
Monty Hall.
When a MMORPG finally understand what rare means then perhaps we can get away from this incessant farming the create. Then Blizzard gets up on their high horse claim gold farmers are bad yet they continue to create the very environment which fosters them!
Of the two I respect Gates for what he does with his money. No one is required to give it away, even a small portion of it. Yet he is dumping quite a bit of money and large amount of it as well. More refreshing is that compared to the likes of Buffet Gates is not doing it promote certain PC-centric causes, he is trying to use his money to make a difference. Gates is the face of Microsoft to many but he isn't Microsoft.
I don't think the same can be said about Jobs and Apple. To me Apple is Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs is Apple. It is so hard to see the two apart because with Jobs I don't think we would still have Apple Computers and the PC world would be less for it. We can have Microsoft without Gates as there are many people who can keep the behemoth moving. The problem with Apple is is that it doesn't work as a Behemoth. It really survived on the personality and drive of one person, no one else in the organization had the right stuff to make it work. It takes a special person to push the limits and know what will appeal. Sure Jobs has made some blunders but his successes are always so much greater that they outshine his failures. That is kind of how Turner is too, the difference is that Jobs has the right flair.
If Gates has one major problem is that he really is boring. But Microsoft didn't get where it was because of it being flashy. It got there through methodical plodding that is required to make good companies large ones. They didn't take big risks, they take calculated risks. It did make a lot of people wealthy and some fabously wealthy. It is very good to see that Gates, with probably a big amount of his wife's influence, do something truly effective with his money. He does have more than any one person or family could use and even after his donations he still does, the great thing about him is that he does not appear to have any ending in sight for his giving. He could be buying up the world's businesses and building a personal empire but he instead is building up the world he lives in and the best part is that most of those he helps will never know who he is. That last part is what truly makes him my favorite. It is one thing to help people who you know and will know you for that help, its a whole 'nuther thing to help those who will never know you or of you.
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when you could snap a x486 chip on top of your existing x386 chip?
My father when that route to upgrade an IBM 65SX. I was amazed something so simple actually worked. It gave new life to an old machine.
I think what prevents most people from ever replacing the chip in their system is that by the time they want to they are so frustrated with their old system they just want to replace it entirely. By frustrated I mean they have loaded it down with so much junk it is just a bear to use.
Also throw in the fact that many systems are really tight fits inside. Then top it off with heat sinks that can be a royal pain to remove or put on, all the while making you feel as if your going to break something and people won't even try.
Back in the 386 days when the whole machine cost big money a processor upgrade was a viable alternative for mom and dad. Today when you can get a new machine for less than $200 after rebates why would they bother?
I can get every podcast I download off of iTunes by another means already. I use iTunes because it is easier. I certainly don't need it. I can have the iTunes client find the podcasts I download manually and add them to my library.
Now, if they start getting exclusive content, or worse making content I can get free elsewhere only available through them I will just move on. Podcasts are successful because they are free expression. iTunes gains more by providing them for free than by attempting to charge. Hell most of the time I get a song off of iTunes is because I was there updating my podcasts! Well if they want me to pay for podcasts I will not be visiting them for those podcasts and at the same time not buying new songs or videos (both music/tv) as often as I was before.
It was inevitiable in one way or another, there was too much opportunity to make money off of them somehow.
UPS will not normally deliver something early. You get exactly what you pay for, no bonus delivery. FedEx will deliver overnight something 2nd day if your in the same city, UPS does not. As such I choose FedEx 2nd day for shipments across town as I know it comes in the day after it ships - not two days.
I have tracked UPS packages that sat for 2 days at a local depot all because they were not supposed to be deliver any earlier because it wasn't paid for.
people seem content on having the very same government provide them with many services that they used to pay for. They expect the government to teach their children, manage their retirement, manage their prescription drugs, and some even want it to take care of all their needs.
So, what do you expect? The politicians will have government protect you from what they deem is wrong as you have already giving over so much control to them so far. People are making it the government's business because they don't want the responsibility. Those same damn people are the ones who will lose us our rights unless we can find politicians who understand what a free society truly is. They come at us from the left and the right - that they come from both sides escapes some people
for the new iBooks and Minis.
:). The excuse of not being able to load XP has been pretty much solved as I can find numerous methods of doing so. I really could put to use a laptop that can boot the big 3 OSes.
When is the next big Mac get together?
While I like the specs of the new MacBooks, at their price point they don't quite cut it. Perhaps the second revision will make changes. Its just so hard to justify $600+ MacTax for 1lb of less weight and a few minor extras. Case in point CompUSA is selling an Acer duo, (1280x800 display x1400 graphics, 2GB memory, 120gb hdd, for 1299). While I understand that to some their is better engineering in the Mac I doubt the assembly lines used by either is much different). Yeah I know, its the software/experience/quality. There are levels to which all of us assign imporantance to these items. However most of it is opinion and we can all find pro and con examples to back our case. To me the justification of owning one of the new Intel based macs is being able to run any x86 OS.
If they deliver a duo-iBook, say with 13" screen and similar graphics ability I may find my next notebook. Throw out the iSight and give me a modem
iBook dream, 1599 for 1.66 duo, x1600 256mb, fw400, usb2, upto 2gb memory, 13" 1280x800, etc. I don't know Apple's screen sizing principles and heard the new Macbook deviated from established norms (is that true?)
The world of Mac is getting closer to me everyday...
this ignores keyboard monitoring which has been reported several times by others.
Face it, there are companies that will do whatever they want when it comes to monitoring their employees. In some cases it will be done out of fear of audits (think SOX compliance in the US) and in others it will be done to protect vital information that could damage the corporation if it gets out (think trade secrets or even dirty laundry)
I bet there are a few that don't even permit cell phones. However while they do I certainly would take advantage of the privacy it can gain me. Its my life and yes my life continues even while I am work.
I'll give you the number one reason why I am changing to a phone that supports IM.
WORK!
With all the monitoring they do at my place of work and worse, what I read being done at others, I will take steps to insure my privacy.
Phone calls can be monitored, Internet usage usually is, IM can be as well, and e-mail is scanned, some times censored, and even saved.
With IM on my phone I can stay in touch with those who need me without the interruption of an actual phone call as well as keep my life private from my employer. Also IM messages tend to be more to the point that some phone calls can be. Granted there are lots of "silly" one liners but people tend to refrain from having never ending conversations with them
Well here in the states we have had politicians use information gleaned from the IRS to harrass political opponents. I am quite sure they use other government agencies.
The argument against loss of privacy is false for the most part. People willingly give up personal information on an almost daily basis. Every financial transaction short of those paid in cash is tracked. Worse some information about your financial well being is available through government agencies through "openess laws". One of my ex-girlfriends tracked me down using a publically available database on housing tax assessments. She could not find me any other way, this I know because she told me how she did it. When I went and checked it as very annoying as to how much information was available. From the date of purchase, price of purchase, to my current assessment and status of payment of my taxes.
My biggest worry about compulsory id cards and the tracking of data they entail is that there are groups who will find a method, legal or illegal, to obtain this information. If anything, those in the government may find themselves even more exposed. Worse are those in government who will create laws to exempt themselves from what is required of regular citizens. The Congress of The United States has a wonderful and colorful history of excepting itself from some of the legislation it imposes on the citizens.
Some are more equal than others.
what is killing batteries faster is the screens. Throw in CD and DVD drives which some people seem to think run on magic and you have the recipe for short battery life. One industry that needs to wake up is the game industry which loves to have CD/DVDs that must be loaded to play and are accessed during play. Hello!
The processors already have technology to slow down when not being used to their fullest extent. Now what is needed are methods to reduce reliance on spinning up the harddrive; or make it more efficient; and new screen technologies that are not as energy intensive.
Would you put up with more ghosting of the display for longer battery life? Most probably would not as they would associate that problem with inferior technology.
The key difference here is that iTunes and the iPod are wildly popular.
What I find to be the issue is that I cannot get their DRM on any non-Apple product. I am quite sure if it was available someone would have licensed it. This leads me to believe that either they are not licensing Fairplay or setting the cost too high for anyone else to be competitive.
Just like with their OS they are locking out competitors. Unlike their PC line the iPod/iTunes combination is immensely popular. In the US they are near if not over 3/4 of the market. Since they control both ends of their market (hardware and service) they are actually in a stronger position than Microsoft. Unlike the PC world you don't have a valid alternative to iTunes if you own an iPod and vica versa.
Apple should be required to license FairPlay for a reasonable cost. It is anything but Fair now. Apple is protecting their margin in the US by keeping the competition from competing. I would love some competition to iPods, bring those prices down. That may be the key to the lawsuit, since you cannot compete with Apple they can dictate the market prices so strictly.
First I seriously doubt they can truly measure the "spikes" many centuries ago as accurately as we can now. Just as we could not count the true number of hurricanes and tropical storms a mere 50 years ago. Yeah its warming, but then what explains the "Medieval Warm Period"? I want to know. If they can explain that then perhaps they can see a correlation with today or point out why today is different.
Yet they will only use that older "warm period" as a reference and never explain it. The explanation will be cast aside as "meaningless to the context of the discussion" which is bunk because there is no discussion; its ideaology. For too many the Global Warming issue is taking on aspects of a religion. You either believe or your branded as a heretic, and heaven forbid those doing the branding have someone with money or in the press on their side. Your view will always be out of context if presented as all.
After reading the article I am more curious as to why a warming trend was so pronounced that we can easily identify its range way back when. If we knew the whys of it occuring back then it might give us insight into what is happening today.
The big hang up I have with software I get online is that they usually want me to pay the same retail price as if I bought the boxed item. This forms a big disconnect in my head which essentially drives me to buy the box set instead.
One area that would certainly benefit is the mmog games. There is little real reason to buy the base software but that model is still used regardless. people with slow connections will be at a loss but even after months of release these people who do require boxed versions would be back in the same boat as many game updates easily overwhelm dialup connections. This is what probably holds back consoles with harddrives - how do you deliver games where storage isn't a given?
If the industry wants to change direction they will need to realize we will not pay the same price. Yes I know that publishers make up their money with new releases but something has got to give.
what i fear will happen is that we will be paying the box price for over the line delivery and a new upcharge for the box version. the industry will take a grand idea and exploit it in the worst possible method.
I think where he was going is that there is little room for than a few major mmogs to exist at any one time.
While it can be argued what a successful mmog is it all comes down to what class of developer you are. To the indie, who arguably at the lower end of the spectrum a game with 1 to 2k subscribers is very successful; at the level they compete at. Where as you get to the level of where games like UO, EQ, and WOW are at and the whole meaning of successful changes.
Another view is that the situation of what was occuring in the late 90s really hasn't changed much to this day. There were many small players back then, in fact that was the market. It wasn't until M59 that gamers and developers began to understand that larger audiences were really possible. Then comes UO and suddenly you have the breakthrough. Where before everyone was competeing at the same level you now suddenly have two. Before EQ it was UO in its own class; and no I don't consider M59 to be in that class; and everyone else.
Then comes EQ which furthers the difference between the tiers. Throw in DAOC, AC, and others and the tiering of the market is complete. So while you can have "successful" indies and such they aren't really any different than the muds/mushes of the 90s. They aren't competeing at the same level as the big fish. The pool can support lots of little fish as they go unnoticed by many, its the big fish that have to compete more vigorously.
The advancements generated to put men on Mars are not all known to us at this time. Just as we did not know the effects of going to the moon in the 60s.
/. readers that if any other leader had proposed going to Mars and the Moon again it would have been received a whole lot differently. NASA is finally again moving forward, we finally have someone who killed that damn shuttle program. Can you imagine being saddled with that damn system for another 20 years? The rest of the world would have been watching us from up there instead of looking to the stars to find us.
Is it a boondoggle to set hard goals? If man is going to have a presence in space then we need to start the work now. Sure we've been to the moon before but staying there is a whole new ballgame. Orbit? Been there, done that, hell we are practically trapped in it.
Robots to the stars? Sure, but until we start pushing ourselves out there all we are going to have is the naysayers holding us back forever. Get there and then the naysayers can off to their next project.
I suggest to quite a few
Sometimes good science requires setting and then obtaining goals that others find silly or wasteful. Go look in history back at many of the major discoveries. You will find quite a few many labeled as folly until it was done
Not at all.
It is closer to Elite than Starflight. There really isn't any mystery out there it has turned into mostly politics with some really big battles to sort out the disagreements.
I have seen nothing since Starflight that compares well and certainly nothing in the mmorpg realm.
I work in a world where a variation of the PowerPC drives a business. From iSeries (AS/400 new name) to xSeries and eventually the pSeries. The processor and the technology behind it are simply amazing. We went from 48bit to 64bit computing in the late 90s without recompiling or any such nonsense because iSeries engineers separated the processor from the OS. The tech has always been there. We have PowerPC powered thin clients as well - fanless to boot!
Switching to the Intel platform allowed Apple to get those sitting on the fence waiting for the next greatest thing to have a reason to buy a new Apple computer. It will even garner more buyers from the previously Intel-Only world in the form of linux and windows geeks. Continuing the PowerPC line would not generate the boost in revenue Steve needed. There are only so many variations of the iPod they can crank out before someone either starts to truly compete (overseas the iPod saturation level is only near 40%) or the market moves to further integration perhaps out of Apple's area of expertise.
I know its working, almost everyone of my friends who have Macs are going to buy into the new machines. The laptops are where its going to be the biggest until the mini comes out intel flavored. After that IntelMini comes out I expect another surge once someone shows Linux and Windows running on it easily.
The NANO never made sense for its cost compared to regular iPods. What made sense is having a screen as well as no moving parts. $149 is almost an impulse buy these days in this market.
I can easily make a play list or two to for times when the nano is more relevant than the full blown iPod. Any truly physical sport comes to mind. I have had my iPod take unplanned jumps to the ground that made me flinch (and reboot it more than once). I would feel much better knowing there isn't something that might suffer serious damage in a fall in there.
This sounds like it was written specifically for lawyers to bring more Class Action lawsuits against companies and reap big rewards for themselves. Here is a noose, please put your neck in it.
How long after they require all this tracking till they specify how many of X applicants you must have to obtain a federal contract? I would figure only a few years.
The only reason to track diversity is to punish when it does not meet that requirement of the day.
Just what do you think Apple is doing?
By going Intel they almost guarantee that a lot of their users will feel compelled to upgrade. While in the laptop range the upgrade issue can almost be moot, those with desktops may feel less pressure now but companies may end up forcing the issue on them by not having non-universal editions in the future.
This change does Apple very well, at the expense of many of their users. Hopefully they will be able garner new users as well. If it were easier to run *nix/Windows I bet the sales would be much higher.
The effect a nuke would have on the economy of the US and the world would be devastating. The question is, are there countries with leaders fanatical enough to do it?
Unfortunately I think there are.
This shield was never designed to deal with what Russia could lob at us. Putin just comes out with speeches actings AS IF we were actually trying to defend from Russia. He has to do this as the sorry state of their military has to be kept from their people. What better way than to latch on US stories of missile defense with some of their own propoganda?
I don't think you can put a cost on what a strike would cost.
Actually I find it harder to get people to fix the bug after its been identificed. While some of our maintenance programmers may get around to it most of the programmers are more interested in writing new code or major changes to an existing program. Fixing bugs isn't as glamorous as doing something new.
:)
The other side is that you can fix the bug but dependancies may introduce something new that is as bad or worse. That leads the fixing programmers into a bind, that of it being an obvious fix but having to make sure what they doesn't lead to more. You then have people clamoring for their heads because they are taking to long or going for their heads after the fix because something was missed.
Source code availability to the public isn't going to do THAT much more to help find the bugs. Given our present day environment it would lead to exploitation of more bugs. There are far more people out there who would want to damage products than help. Besides, if bugs were easier to identify if the source was available many of the OSS programs should be bug free, eh?
that you have to hold the whole world liable for the fix. Kyoto did not do this and that invalidates it. The Western world countries have gone to great extents to clean up their environments, the US is nearly a whole different country in regards to the environment since the 70s. Places where pollution was obvious but ignored are now safe.
Blaming the issue of non-compliance on oil and republicans is just playing stupid politics. If anything it is the standard lame attempt to make it appear one has a valid point but in fact doesn't.
With both China and India gearing up their economies nothing we do in the West is going to have a measurable impact. China is coming up like the old Eastern Soviet states did, ramping up without regard for the environment or people around them. You want to find the worst abuses of the environment go look towards former Soviet states. Some of those were frightening. Going on a trip and being told to stay physically away from rivers is not a great way to encourage tourists to return.
We have NASA ice cores that show more wild swings in our temperatures and more extremes than we see now. We constantly get contradicting reports about the speed, effect, and even the cause of Global Warming. I fully expect within a month or two if not sooner to have another report laying the blame on some new man made source we "just noticed". Perhaps a report claiming even more dire issues or a faster occurence of them?
After a time it gets old. What sinks the Global Warming cause more than anything is that even the GW side cannot agree on all the causes let alone all its effect. The latest report/study/article always seems to be the one with issues most glom onto while they totally ignore past articles. Heaven forbid any article that attempts to refute any GW "theorey" as the writers will be villified. There is no allowance for the other side in this argument and that by itself damages the pro-GW side even more. People have to come to understand that when one side consistently paints the other with hostile terms, actions, and name calling that the side doing so isn't telling the whole truth.
Get the whole world involved or blame the whole world. Singling out the US gets very tiring. All the world done in the US and elsewhere over the last 30 years fixing the enviornment are going to be lost as long as China and the East are ignored.
Seriously. Rare should mean only a few can exist in the entire world. In MMORPG parlance rare means you just have to farm the same damn mob over and over for it to drop. Nothing is Rare/Epic in WOW. It just takes longer to get. Hell most 60s are equipped in rares/epics.
Worse, its an ever escalating arms race. They keep out doing the last quest and now you have scads of level 60s running around with items that normal level 60 content can't threaten and worse, in PvP anyone not equipped on the same level is just shit out of luck.
Monty Hall.
When a MMORPG finally understand what rare means then perhaps we can get away from this incessant farming the create. Then Blizzard gets up on their high horse claim gold farmers are bad yet they continue to create the very environment which fosters them!
(sorry for the ramble)
I have seen guilds that were advertising for members under out of game religious terms have their guilds disbanded.
Simply put, the real world has no business in the game. It is a fantasy game and is to be such within the scope they provide.
People come to these games to escape reality.
Of the two I respect Gates for what he does with his money. No one is required to give it away, even a small portion of it. Yet he is dumping quite a bit of money and large amount of it as well. More refreshing is that compared to the likes of Buffet Gates is not doing it promote certain PC-centric causes, he is trying to use his money to make a difference. Gates is the face of Microsoft to many but he isn't Microsoft.
I don't think the same can be said about Jobs and Apple. To me Apple is Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs is Apple. It is so hard to see the two apart because with Jobs I don't think we would still have Apple Computers and the PC world would be less for it. We can have Microsoft without Gates as there are many people who can keep the behemoth moving. The problem with Apple is is that it doesn't work as a Behemoth. It really survived on the personality and drive of one person, no one else in the organization had the right stuff to make it work. It takes a special person to push the limits and know what will appeal. Sure Jobs has made some blunders but his successes are always so much greater that they outshine his failures. That is kind of how Turner is too, the difference is that Jobs has the right flair.
If Gates has one major problem is that he really is boring. But Microsoft didn't get where it was because of it being flashy. It got there through methodical plodding that is required to make good companies large ones. They didn't take big risks, they take calculated risks. It did make a lot of people wealthy and some fabously wealthy. It is very good to see that Gates, with probably a big amount of his wife's influence, do something truly effective with his money. He does have more than any one person or family could use and even after his donations he still does, the great thing about him is that he does not appear to have any ending in sight for his giving. He could be buying up the world's businesses and building a personal empire but he instead is building up the world he lives in and the best part is that most of those he helps will never know who he is. That last part is what truly makes him my favorite. It is one thing to help people who you know and will know you for that help, its a whole 'nuther thing to help those who will never know you or of you.