Am I to assume that Far is a city? Perhaps a country? It must be a location of -some- kind, otherwise why would someone "go to" Far? I must research this further.
Fantastic new invention found! Still images placed on a reel and handcranked through light and synched with a nearby phonograph result in what is being called a "motion picture".
For this breaking story and more, stay tuned to our radio broadcast!
I was having major issues with Firefox 0.8 viewing/. in Mac OS X. It would completely push the news headers off the window, horizontally, until I refreshed a couple times.
That seems to have been addressed in 0.9rc (running it now).
I just had a strange experience, however, when I was running the 0.9rc app after taking it from the disk image..firefox kept trying to open and then closed itself after 3 seconds and did this over and over until I had to reboot.
AUGH! MORE SPOILERS. I'm only like, 30% through it!
-fingers in ears-
Re:Did Anyone See that Brief Test Story on Slashdo
on
Dell's Gaming Monster
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Well of course it's Offtopic, where else can I post it;) Just thought it odd.
Carry on.
Did Anyone See that Brief Test Story on Slashdot?
on
Dell's Gaming Monster
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Full text below:
odd!
Test [ News ] Posted by Cliff on Friday February 13, @03:30PM from the dept. I bought the Sunflowers' 1503AD game practically as soon as it came out, since my wife and I loved to play the old 1602AD together via LAN. 1503AD's expanded multiplayer feature was touted all over the internet (see here, here, and here), yet when I bought the game for the costly $52 I was very unpleasantly surprised that the game had none. Despite the continuous claims that the company is working on the MP patch, we're now 7 months away from the initial release, the game sells now for a measly $15, and I am yet to play a single second of it, as I have no interest in the single player experience. My attempts at communication with the company led to nothing but dead-ends and unprovoked mistreatment. Unfortunately, this is not a unique occurrence in today's entertainment software industry, where atrocious lack of support is growing rampant and is increasingly coupled with ridiculous EULA's. Therefore I decided to finally exercise my end-user rights and pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. Hereby I am asking you, fellow Slashdotters, for help in seeking answers to the following questions as well assistance in assembling signatures for the class-action lawsuit... 1) I need to expose this iniquity so that the software consumers become aware of this atrocious lack of support that is running rampant among the today's entertainment software producers (obviously having this posted on Slashdot will be exposure in itself to be reckoned with). 2) I would greatly appreciate your advice on how to locate a reputable and internationally active law firm that could handle this case. 3) I would like to know what is the required number of the participants for the class-action lawsuit to be instantiated. 4) Do you think that this course of action will yield any results? 5) If you have this game and feel the same like I do, I would like to urge you to please join the class-action lawsuit as only together can we fight the corporate giants. Also, if you feel that you can and are willing to help out in any other shape or form (i.e. website maintenance etc.), please do not hesitate to contact me and/or visit the website stated below. 6) I believe that the class-action lawsuit, if successful, will let the entertainment software companies know that we, as investors in their product(s) are not to be trifled with. As such, this can be used to leverage further attempts at forcing the other entertainment software companies support their product(s) as they ought to, as well as hopefully abolishing the obfuscated EULA's that relinquish them of any responsibility towards consumers. 1503AD is by no means an exception, but rather it is part of an unfortunate growing trend among the entertainment software companies! I am urging you to please help out with this issue as this could just be the greatest thing that happened to the end-user rights in a long time! For more details regarding this issue please visit: http://home.fuse.net/slipstreamscapes/
Blizzard does this in a sense with their "Blizzard Friends" program where if you are selected for a Beta and you consistantly provide original and reproducable bugs in the game, you get added to the Friends list. The users on this list are automatically entered into the next Blizzard beta (whatever it will be..in this case the WoW Beta) but then they have to re-earn the right to be on the list for that one and so on and so on.
I don't know if rewarding bug-hunters with stat/item upgrades would be in the best interest of trying to develop an environment so dependant on balance, but I think Blizzard has a good idea.
I was selected for the Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Beta but unfortunately did not have the time to be a persistant tester, despite it being very fun.
Oh, and just to amend this post, the reason I picked GoVoJo first was their pricing level. It's a bit lower than the others as far as I could see.
Lite Service 1 game $13.95 per month Silver Service 2 games $19.95 per month Gold Service 3 games $29.95 per month Platinum Service 4 games out for $34.95 per month.
I too was uncertain where to go for Netflix-esque service so I'm sort of trying a bunch out. I'm starting with GoVoJo.com who has pretty much the same pricing as the others.
The only gripe I have with them, however, is the weak paper sleeve they shipped the games in. Sealed with perforated openings that were both wide open when they were in my mailbox.
Gamefly sounds like it's getting a lot of positive feedback so maybe I'll try them when I finish playing my copy of FFX-2 from GoVoJo;)
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea, not Apple's.
About positioning and getting attention on iTunes
* Apple has hired an editorial staff with backgrounds in music to decide what gets featured.
* Editorial team makes decisions every day as to what goes where.
* Big labels don't get preferential treatment.
* "We pick music we like, and we think everyone else is going to like."
* "We've had a lot of people offer money", but A
You think ants are a gross thing for an iBook..
on
Ants Invade iBook
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I fix iBooks in the computer store for Brown Uni and we had someone bring in an iBook that apparently had been vomited on copiously at some party. ALL over the keyboard, and inside the circuits. For some reason, it wasn't working! And they brought it in about 3 days after it happened....
If this ThinkSecret source is correct, then Apple is just playing hardball for more money, or better footing? They intentionally told IDG they were behind the move then suddenly pulled the carpet out from under them? Sure, New York is where the "scene" is, but the extra money that it's going to cost to keep it there (if Apple truly wants it there..who knows now) could be used towards development or better Apple products.
Is there an eclipse going on somewhere in the universe that only effects Marketing/PR people? Apple and MS seem to have gone mad in such respects.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't enjoy seeing Apple updates..I do! But, erm..is this truly front page material?
Am I to assume that Far is a city? Perhaps a country? It must be a location of -some- kind, otherwise why would someone "go to" Far? I must research this further.
If it worked for the Super Mario Bros. franchise it'll work for DOOM, that movie was FANTASTIC!
What?
Oh.
What about Street Figh-..oh. Really?
Hmm.
Fantastic new invention found!
Still images placed on a reel and handcranked through light and synched with a nearby phonograph result in what is being called a "motion picture".
For this breaking story and more, stay tuned to our radio broadcast!
"..and finish the International Space Station with disposable rockets ..."
I thought this meant destroying the station with rockets, which I thought would be sort of moving backwards. After RTFM, it all became clear.
I was having major issues with Firefox 0.8 viewing /. in Mac OS X. It would completely push the news headers off the window, horizontally, until I refreshed a couple times.
That seems to have been addressed in 0.9rc (running it now).
I just had a strange experience, however, when I was running the 0.9rc app after taking it from the disk image..firefox kept trying to open and then closed itself after 3 seconds and did this over and over until I had to reboot.
Hopefully that was just a first-run thing
Oh. Phew. Good! My faith in Slashdot is restored! All is well!
AUGH! MORE SPOILERS. I'm only like, 30% through it!
-fingers in ears-
Well of course it's Offtopic, where else can I post it ;) Just thought it odd.
Carry on.
Full text below:
odd!
Test
[ News ]
Posted by Cliff on Friday February 13, @03:30PM
from the dept.
I bought the Sunflowers' 1503AD game practically as soon as it came out, since my wife and
I loved to play the old 1602AD together via LAN. 1503AD's expanded multiplayer feature was
touted all over the internet (see here, here, and here), yet when I bought the game for
the costly $52 I was very unpleasantly surprised that the game had none. Despite the
continuous claims that the company is working on the MP patch, we're now 7 months away
from the initial release, the game sells now for a measly $15, and I am yet to play a
single second of it, as I have no interest in the single player experience. My attempts at
communication with the company led to nothing but dead-ends and unprovoked mistreatment.
Unfortunately, this is not a unique occurrence in today's entertainment software industry,
where atrocious lack of support is growing rampant and is increasingly coupled with
ridiculous EULA's. Therefore I decided to finally exercise my end-user rights and pursue a
class-action lawsuit against the company. Hereby I am asking you, fellow Slashdotters, for
help in seeking answers to the following questions as well assistance in assembling
signatures for the class-action lawsuit... 1) I need to expose this iniquity so that the
software consumers become aware of this atrocious lack of support that is running rampant
among the today's entertainment software producers (obviously having this posted on
Slashdot will be exposure in itself to be reckoned with). 2) I would greatly appreciate
your advice on how to locate a reputable and internationally active law firm that could
handle this case. 3) I would like to know what is the required number of the participants
for the class-action lawsuit to be instantiated. 4) Do you think that this course of
action will yield any results? 5) If you have this game and feel the same like I do, I
would like to urge you to please join the class-action lawsuit as only together can we
fight the corporate giants. Also, if you feel that you can and are willing to help out in
any other shape or form (i.e. website maintenance etc.), please do not hesitate to contact
me and/or visit the website stated below. 6) I believe that the class-action lawsuit, if
successful, will let the entertainment software companies know that we, as investors in
their product(s) are not to be trifled with. As such, this can be used to leverage further
attempts at forcing the other entertainment software companies support their product(s) as
they ought to, as well as hopefully abolishing the obfuscated EULA's that relinquish them
of any responsibility towards consumers. 1503AD is by no means an exception, but rather it
is part of an unfortunate growing trend among the entertainment software companies! I am
urging you to please help out with this issue as this could just be the greatest thing
that happened to the end-user rights in a long time! For more details regarding this issue
please visit: http://home.fuse.net/slipstreamscapes/
And now (as of 1604EST on Jan 27,03) it seems to be down admist a sea of 500 Internal Server Errors.
Oops?
Blizzard does this in a sense with their "Blizzard Friends" program where if you are selected for a Beta and you consistantly provide original and reproducable bugs in the game, you get added to the Friends list. The users on this list are automatically entered into the next Blizzard beta (whatever it will be..in this case the WoW Beta) but then they have to re-earn the right to be on the list for that one and so on and so on.
I don't know if rewarding bug-hunters with stat/item upgrades would be in the best interest of trying to develop an environment so dependant on balance, but I think Blizzard has a good idea.
I was selected for the Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Beta but unfortunately did not have the time to be a persistant tester, despite it being very fun.
Here's hoping for WoW!
I'm sad to inform you that Trent has since stated that he will -not- be doing the music/ambience for DOOM 3.
This saddens me very much, too, but it's a fact. His work on Quake was absolutely fantastic, and I was looking forward to another excellent effort.
Ah well.
Oh, and just to amend this post, the reason I picked GoVoJo first was their pricing level. It's a bit lower than the others as far as I could see.
Lite Service 1 game $13.95 per month
Silver Service 2 games $19.95 per month
Gold Service 3 games $29.95 per month
Platinum Service 4 games out for $34.95 per month.
I too was uncertain where to go for Netflix-esque service so I'm sort of trying a bunch out. I'm starting with GoVoJo.com who has pretty much the same pricing as the others.
;)
The only gripe I have with them, however, is the weak paper sleeve they shipped the games in. Sealed with perforated openings that were both wide open when they were in my mailbox.
Gamefly sounds like it's getting a lot of positive feedback so maybe I'll try them when I finish playing my copy of FFX-2 from GoVoJo
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea, not Apple's.
About positioning and getting attention on iTunes
* Apple has hired an editorial staff with backgrounds in music to decide what gets featured.
* Editorial team makes decisions every day as to what goes where.
* Big labels don't get preferential treatment.
* "We pick music we like, and we think everyone else is going to like."
* "We've had a lot of people offer money", but A
I fix iBooks in the computer store for Brown Uni and we had someone bring in an iBook that apparently had been vomited on copiously at some party. ALL over the keyboard, and inside the circuits. For some reason, it wasn't working! And they brought it in about 3 days after it happened....
Looks like Apple wants to make sure no one misses this MS goof. They've updated their Hot News page with a nice link to it.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
If this ThinkSecret source is correct, then Apple is just playing hardball for more money, or better footing?
They intentionally told IDG they were behind the move then suddenly pulled the carpet out from under them?
Sure, New York is where the "scene" is, but the extra money that it's going to cost to keep it there (if Apple truly wants it there..who knows now) could be used towards development or better Apple products.
Is there an eclipse going on somewhere in the universe that only effects Marketing/PR people? Apple and MS seem to have gone mad in such respects.
JonKatz managed to fit in the word "elephantine" twice in 2 articles.
Sounds like someone has a new favourite word!
How symbolic! How stunning! How repetitive.