Seems like the only reason to get involved, to me, is the process, not the end result. Which seems kinda odd in some respects.
Really? Isn't that true of every game? If I put down my money for a Monopoly set or a copy of Half-Life 2 or a WoW subscription, am I really only doing it for the "end result", or am I interested in spending time playing the game?
Putting money into something to get a guaranteed end result is called investment...
It's a pay-to-play game, not a pay-to-win game. It's not even very unusual - nobody buys a board game, or a computer game, or pumps their cash into WoW just to win a "big prize"; they do it to enjoy the gameplay and social interaction with other players. The same goes for the puzzle cards in Perplex City.
AOL's openID's are all in AOL's namespace; DirtyTurtle278346812376.aol.com isn't going to prevent you having DirtyTurtle278346812376.myopenidserver.org.
PXC is a traditional ARG (look it up on wikipedia), but with a treasure-hunt attached. You didn't need to buy or see cards to participate in the ARG, but you definitely did if you wanted a chance at the treasure. The Cube was the treasure for both - the fictional item all the in-game characters are searching for, and the real-world hunk of metal buried somewhere (well not anymore of course) that the players were trying to find in order to win the cash prize.
Good thing you didn't buy any, the few people who did discovered they are just a cheap plastic sheet with a push switch at each corner. You can build a similar mechanism from spare parts easily enough.
Betamax failed in the marketplace, but Betacam did very well in the professional market. Note that these are VERY different technologies. Betamax battled VHS and lost, but Betacam competed against MII (the professional version of VHS) and won.
Sure, Betamax and Betacam may have the same sized tapes, but the video signals on them are very different.
I don't understand the mental leaps that could reach such a conclusion.
Nobody knows how much money Google has given Mozilla. But hey, it's Google, Google's rich, therefore Google must have given Mozilla 50 BILLION DOLLARS hence Mozilla must be an evil den of scam artists, cheating HARD WORKING salt-of-the-earth taxpayers out of money to feed their children whilst they worship Satan and drink baby blood for refreshment.
Um. Right.
Mozilla has a large number of employees it has to pay. I work for a software startup that has a tenth the number of employees, that operates quite frugally and isn't blowing millions in venture capital like a lot of IT startups have... and yet it *still* has basic operating costs of tens of thousands of dollars a month. Scale that to Mozilla's case and you begin to see it's not fair to expect them to conduct business on insert-unrealistic-personal-expectation -of-"nonprofit"-revenue-here dollars a year. Employees cost money. Office space costs money. Utilities cost money. A *lot* more money than you seem to think it does.
Yes, my company is for-profit, but that only matters once we start making more than we're spending...
Additionally, "non-profit" isn't some self-applied fuzzy term that a manager can just decide to ignore when it's convenient - there's a raft of legal and taxation obligations placed on any company with non-profit status. Auditors have to make a living after all...
Actually Lik-Sang are really very good with their reviews. Yes, they're selling the items they review. But I've never known them to pump up a review just to drive sales (and in some cases the reviews have caused them to decide not to stock a sub-par product, like the original batch of GP2Xes.) If they think it's crap, they say so.
Apparently the cable is reinforced with kevlar... whether that is true or not I couldn't say. But they're definitely the lightest, strongest, most flexible headphone cable I have ever seen.
Mine has lasted well over a year now with no sign of wear.
Practically all of my old (usually cheap) headphones developed serious problems with broken wires in the cables, but my PX100s look like they will last for freaking ever:)
The US government isn't giving Google a "do this or we'll block your service entirely" ultimatum. They weren't even making the request for security reasons, just to bolster their argument in a review of a *pornography* law. Google can and should stand up for user's privacy; and they are.
The chinese government is unambiguously giving Google an ultimatum. Sure, Google can refuse, but all that means is they are self-censoring their ENTIRE service instead of partially. It's not even a privacy issue at all - if the government was asking Google to release the names of people searching sensitive topics then Google would be doing a bad thing by acquiescing, but they aren't being asked that *at all*. At least, not this time.
Effectively banning even the majority of searches which aren't politically sensitive for the sake of a stubborn viewpoint over a few is what you're advocating, and I see that as the greater evil.
Looks to me like Google has taken the best route available to them in each case. Neither is perfect, but why are you expecting that?
Well, not *entirely* inaccessible, but certainly by design.
Shirow has said he is trying to achieve an effect much like that if a comic book set in the present day (dealing realistically with our technology, politics and philosophy) fell back in time a few hundred years... would the person who picked it up be able to understand everything in it?
Not likely.
So GITS is similar... only *we're* the poor schmuck in the distant past trying to make sense of it all without all the external social and technical knowledge the "intended readership" would have.:)
Unfortunately the only light that is actually any use is that generated in a very small area at the focal point of the first fresnel - everything else is generally wasted. The MH lamps we use have a pretty small arc length, about 4 cm. But that's *huge* compared to what's ideal. Hence, a much brighter lamp has to be used in order to compensate.
Additionally, the LCD screen and even the clear optics consume a considerable amount of light themselves - LCD's only let something like 6% of the light through! And each lens/mirror/piece of glass the light has to go through eats about 10%. So what you get out is nothing like what you put in.:S
At least they're honest about their product not having marvellous image quality:) What they were using it for is about the most appropriate use for the single-fresnel-cardboard-box design.
Actually, it's only a scam if they mislead you as to what you get for your money. If they're honest (and the LL folks are) then it can't be a scam. By definition.
Hell, I can put a piece of cardboard with a scribble on it up on ebay for $1000 and it wouldn't be a scam if I actually advertised it as "piece of cardboard with scribble on it." (Some artists do it all the time!:D ) It would be a scam if I said it was a "fully fledged home theatre system with a bonus xbox360."
Sure, the $1000 cardboard would be a ripoff. But the Lumenlab forums have such a wealth of information that the $20 is well worth it.
Why would you want to buy a refridgerator when you could just buy an esky and dump some ice in it? Why would you want a TV when you could cut up some paper, draw images on each piece, then assemble them into a flipbook?:D
An OHP with an LCD on top is going to be ungainly, fragile and is going to dump a lot of waste light around it, washing out the image. DIY projectors aren't infinitely bright; controlling the ambient light is an important consideration.
The three things you want in an ideal projection lamp are
a) very high light output b) very short arc length c) very even colour spectrum
The reason b) is important is because the projection optics rely on having a point-light source. Light that's generated only a few mm off the focal point of the first lens doesn't follow the correct path through the optics and gets wasted (or pollutes the light that is going the right way, causing a blurry, washed out image.) Add a) and b) and you get a lot of heat in a very, very small space. Manufacturing a bulb that can do a and b and doesn't explode as soon as it's lit is hard. Add c and things are even harder.
I'm sure bulb manufacturers make a reasonable profit off their bulbs, but they aren't deliberately limiting the lifespan of these bulbs for the hell of it - it's just you only get two out of "cheap", "good" and "long-lived".
Actually the diy pj is *significantly* larger than commercial pj's. The basic configuration for a diy pj that uses a 15" panel is called a "dog coffin" for a very good reason.:) And there are a lot of other places where a commercial projector trounces a diy one handily - you just have to decide which set of trade-offs you want to live with.
New cheapie projector = $600. Bulb replacement fee for cheapie pj = $400+ (and definitely $600+ for a lot of PJ's) Bulb replacement frequency for cheapie pj = once a year, longer if you strictly ration your pj usage
So cheapie projector = $600+($400*number of years you use the pj). Ouch.
Bulb replacement fee for diy pj = $150 if you're *really* unlucky:) Bulb replacement frequency for diy pj = several years if you use it all the time.
Saving lots of money is not necessarily the best reason to try building a diy pj. But if you've got the time, patience and determination to see the job through then it's a damn nice fringe benefit:)
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Seems like the only reason to get involved, to me, is the process, not the end result. Which seems kinda odd in some respects.
Really? Isn't that true of every game? If I put down my money for a Monopoly set or a copy of Half-Life 2 or a WoW subscription, am I really only doing it for the "end result", or am I interested in spending time playing the game?
Putting money into something to get a guaranteed end result is called investment...
It's a pay-to-play game, not a pay-to-win game. It's not even very unusual - nobody buys a board game, or a computer game, or pumps their cash into WoW just to win a "big prize"; they do it to enjoy the gameplay and social interaction with other players. The same goes for the puzzle cards in Perplex City.
AOL's openID's are all in AOL's namespace; DirtyTurtle278346812376.aol.com isn't going to prevent you having DirtyTurtle278346812376.myopenidserver.org.
PXC is a traditional ARG (look it up on wikipedia), but with a treasure-hunt attached. You didn't need to buy or see cards to participate in the ARG, but you definitely did if you wanted a chance at the treasure. The Cube was the treasure for both - the fictional item all the in-game characters are searching for, and the real-world hunk of metal buried somewhere (well not anymore of course) that the players were trying to find in order to win the cash prize.
...as long as they spend some of their ill-gotten gains fixing the viewer-exploding problem.
Good thing you didn't buy any, the few people who did discovered they are just a cheap plastic sheet with a push switch at each corner. You can build a similar mechanism from spare parts easily enough.
Since their competition is News Corp, I guess I should be grateful I have monkeys!
You're comparing apples to oranges.
Betamax failed in the marketplace, but Betacam did very well in the professional market. Note that these are VERY different technologies. Betamax battled VHS and lost, but Betacam competed against MII (the professional version of VHS) and won.
Sure, Betamax and Betacam may have the same sized tapes, but the video signals on them are very different.
Aren't US phone carrier customer call centres based in India too? :)
I don't understand the mental leaps that could reach such a conclusion.
Nobody knows how much money Google has given Mozilla. But hey, it's Google, Google's rich, therefore Google must have given Mozilla 50 BILLION DOLLARS hence Mozilla must be an evil den of scam artists, cheating HARD WORKING salt-of-the-earth taxpayers out of money to feed their children whilst they worship Satan and drink baby blood for refreshment.
Um. Right.
Mozilla has a large number of employees it has to pay. I work for a software startup that has a tenth the number of employees, that operates quite frugally and isn't blowing millions in venture capital like a lot of IT startups have... and yet it *still* has basic operating costs of tens of thousands of dollars a month. Scale that to Mozilla's case and you begin to see it's not fair to expect them to conduct business on insert-unrealistic-personal-expectation -of-"nonprofit"-revenue-here dollars a year. Employees cost money. Office space costs money. Utilities cost money. A *lot* more money than you seem to think it does.
Yes, my company is for-profit, but that only matters once we start making more than we're spending...
Additionally, "non-profit" isn't some self-applied fuzzy term that a manager can just decide to ignore when it's convenient - there's a raft of legal and taxation obligations placed on any company with non-profit status. Auditors have to make a living after all...
Isn't it obvious that RIAA already flips a coin on all it's studies? Of course, they use two-headed coins... :)
Actually Lik-Sang are really very good with their reviews. Yes, they're selling the items they review. But I've never known them to pump up a review just to drive sales (and in some cases the reviews have caused them to decide not to stock a sub-par product, like the original batch of GP2Xes.) If they think it's crap, they say so.
Apparently the cable is reinforced with kevlar... whether that is true or not I couldn't say. But they're definitely the lightest, strongest, most flexible headphone cable I have ever seen.
:)
Mine has lasted well over a year now with no sign of wear.
Practically all of my old (usually cheap) headphones developed serious problems with broken wires in the cables, but my PX100s look like they will last for freaking ever
The US government isn't giving Google a "do this or we'll block your service entirely" ultimatum. They weren't even making the request for security reasons, just to bolster their argument in a review of a *pornography* law. Google can and should stand up for user's privacy; and they are.
The chinese government is unambiguously giving Google an ultimatum. Sure, Google can refuse, but all that means is they are self-censoring their ENTIRE service instead of partially. It's not even a privacy issue at all - if the government was asking Google to release the names of people searching sensitive topics then Google would be doing a bad thing by acquiescing, but they aren't being asked that *at all*. At least, not this time.
Effectively banning even the majority of searches which aren't politically sensitive for the sake of a stubborn viewpoint over a few is what you're advocating, and I see that as the greater evil.
Looks to me like Google has taken the best route available to them in each case. Neither is perfect, but why are you expecting that?
Seconded.
Oh god, I'm gonna be hearing HOOOOOOOOOORRRRKK in my head for ages now...
Well, not *entirely* inaccessible, but certainly by design.
:)
Shirow has said he is trying to achieve an effect much like that if a comic book set in the present day (dealing realistically with our technology, politics and philosophy) fell back in time a few hundred years... would the person who picked it up be able to understand everything in it?
Not likely.
So GITS is similar... only *we're* the poor schmuck in the distant past trying to make sense of it all without all the external social and technical knowledge the "intended readership" would have.
It's been measured somewhere around 300 lumens.
Unfortunately the only light that is actually any use is that generated in a very small area at the focal point of the first fresnel - everything else is generally wasted. The MH lamps we use have a pretty small arc length, about 4 cm. But that's *huge* compared to what's ideal. Hence, a much brighter lamp has to be used in order to compensate.
:S
Additionally, the LCD screen and even the clear optics consume a considerable amount of light themselves - LCD's only let something like 6% of the light through! And each lens/mirror/piece of glass the light has to go through eats about 10%. So what you get out is nothing like what you put in.
At least they're honest about their product not having marvellous image quality :) What they were using it for is about the most appropriate use for the single-fresnel-cardboard-box design.
Actually, it's only a scam if they mislead you as to what you get for your money. If they're honest (and the LL folks are) then it can't be a scam. By definition.
:D ) It would be a scam if I said it was a "fully fledged home theatre system with a bonus xbox360."
Hell, I can put a piece of cardboard with a scribble on it up on ebay for $1000 and it wouldn't be a scam if I actually advertised it as "piece of cardboard with scribble on it." (Some artists do it all the time!
Sure, the $1000 cardboard would be a ripoff. But the Lumenlab forums have such a wealth of information that the $20 is well worth it.
Why would you want to buy a refridgerator when you could just buy an esky and dump some ice in it? Why would you want a TV when you could cut up some paper, draw images on each piece, then assemble them into a flipbook? :D
An OHP with an LCD on top is going to be ungainly, fragile and is going to dump a lot of waste light around it, washing out the image. DIY projectors aren't infinitely bright; controlling the ambient light is an important consideration.
Yup, pretty useless... except in the singular case where you want to make a diy video projector. They're pretty useful then.
:)
Good thing that's what I want to do.
The three things you want in an ideal projection lamp are
a) very high light output
b) very short arc length
c) very even colour spectrum
The reason b) is important is because the projection optics rely on having a point-light source. Light that's generated only a few mm off the focal point of the first lens doesn't follow the correct path through the optics and gets wasted (or pollutes the light that is going the right way, causing a blurry, washed out image.) Add a) and b) and you get a lot of heat in a very, very small space. Manufacturing a bulb that can do a and b and doesn't explode as soon as it's lit is hard. Add c and things are even harder.
I'm sure bulb manufacturers make a reasonable profit off their bulbs, but they aren't deliberately limiting the lifespan of these bulbs for the hell of it - it's just you only get two out of "cheap", "good" and "long-lived".
Actually the diy pj is *significantly* larger than commercial pj's. The basic configuration for a diy pj that uses a 15" panel is called a "dog coffin" for a very good reason. :) And there are a lot of other places where a commercial projector trounces a diy one handily - you just have to decide which set of trade-offs you want to live with.
Continuing the cost analysis...
:)
:)
New cheapie projector = $600.
Bulb replacement fee for cheapie pj = $400+ (and definitely $600+ for a lot of PJ's)
Bulb replacement frequency for cheapie pj = once a year, longer if you strictly ration your pj usage
So cheapie projector = $600+($400*number of years you use the pj). Ouch.
Bulb replacement fee for diy pj = $150 if you're *really* unlucky
Bulb replacement frequency for diy pj = several years if you use it all the time.
Saving lots of money is not necessarily the best reason to try building a diy pj. But if you've got the time, patience and determination to see the job through then it's a damn nice fringe benefit