Apple devices are consumer electronics, they're designed to be replaced every year. You're supposed to go out and buy another iPhone or iDevice at the next keynote speech. That's what you're supposed to do.
You are wrong in so many ways that it's pretty amazing. Apple supports iPhones with OS upgrades for at least three years, historically. And you're signed in for a two year contract so no, you're not supposed to buy a new one every single year.
I prefer to have a device that is rugged and the vendor is not just trying to milk me into buying the next one.
You're taking offense to the fact that Apple is trying to entice people into buying their new phone? Tell me what vendor you're using that isn't trying to get you to buy the next one. If you say HTC I'll smack you. And as per that chart above, good luck finding another vendor with the long term support of OS upgrades.
at what point would a variant of the board game Monopoly be different enough to ensure Parker Brothers couldn't sue you?
I don't know for certain, but it appears that as long as you don't call it "Monopoly", don't feature the same graphics and fonts (i.e., the train logo), and don't use the same street names, you can do whatever you want.
Meet Late for the Sky Games. They are a company that, as near as I can tell, is 100% Monopoly clones like you describe. They make them for colleges (Aggieopoly, Longhornopoly), cities (Miamiopoly), little kids (Pirateopoly) and apparently they'll even make a custom version for you if you'll buy 1,000 units. As you can see, they even use the "-opoly" suffix. They've been doing this for decades now.
I believe it's that the rules of a game can be patented, but patents expire, and Monopoly is an old game. That's how they "get away" with it.
Also I believe that this is the reason that Parker Bros. went hogwild on the licensing thing (Star Wars Monopoly, Dallas Cowboys Monopoly, Hello Kitty Monopoly, etc.) because they saw companies like LFTS (who have apparently sold 7M copies of their games) and said "well shit, we should get in on that"
Since the '90s, it's all been PCs.. I do still miss the days of the diversity of home computers (Sinclair spectrums, Dragon 32, Memotech MTX, C64, Amiga, Atari, Oric and so on!).
The diversity you pine for is currently around in the form of the mobile phone hardware/platform wars.
This is the third code release since the Zenimax acquisition (the first being the DOOM Classic iOS source and the second being the Enemy Territory source).
Also, just prior to the Zenimax acquisition they released Wolfenstein 3D Classic on iOS, a port which would not be possible (or at least nearly as easy) had it not been for open source. Someone took the Wolfenstein 3D source and the Quake 2 source and combined them to make an OpenGL port of Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack used this for a base. He also used prBoom as the basis for DOOM Classic on iOS.
So basically he was able to make the case that open source actually made money for id in the long run (he mentioned this at QuakeCon a few years back)
No, you have to use a credit card, which they then charge again for subsequent nights. If you keep a DVD for 25 days then you've bought it, you don't need to return it, and they stop charging you for it (not sure if this will change any with the price change).
Besides the fact that you're singling him out for a joke skit decades ago which was written by someone else, I guess you've missed the part where, in the years since, Shatner wrote a book also called Get a Life! where he explains the skit and comes to grip with Star Trek culture. Or the dozens of things he's done since then including create a documentary about Star Trek captains.
People hate to be typecast. Hell, look at Leonard Nimoy who published a book called I Am Not Spock and then years later another book called I Am Spock.
I don't think it's humanly possible to miss the point and not get the joke any harder than you have in this instance.
"GOOGLE IS GOING TO TAKE ON MICROSOFT WITH ITS OWN OPERATING SYSTEM!!!"
Yes, mainstream media, Google has figured out a way to make a computer that only has a web browser. Look out Microsoft, your days are numbered. You cannot possibly hope to compete with Google's operating system which does not give the ability to write code for it.
The one man who began to disclose more details died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after.
As opposed to all the people who died in plane crashes that aren't mysterious.
All plane crashes are mysterious and suspicious. Planes aren't supposed to crash. They're supposed to stay in the air until they land safely and if they don't then something went horribly wrong. And if you're going to dispose of an enemy, why do so in a manner that the government is sure to investigate?
First, you're comparing a used book store to a new book store.
Second, HPB has higher margins because they run their bookstore like a college bookstore - buy back the textbooks for a fraction of what you're going to resell them for. And you're not worried about clearing out space for new books because your inventory is always changing.
I love HPB but there's two rules of HPB:
1. Don't ever come in looking for something specific. You won't find it. Unless it's something like a Dan Brown novel where there's a trillion copies in print, you probably won't find it.
2. If you do see something you want, get it right then and there because it won't be there next time you come in.
Consequently they attract a completely different clientele than Borders or B&N.
Nintendo already knows this, just look at the virtual boy, powerglove, and R.O.B.
The Power Glove was from Mattel.
R.O.B. was never a serious peripheral from Nintendo. They were having a hard time getting the NES in stores after the video game sales crash of 1982 so they introduced aspects that made it less like a video game system and more like a toy, so that retailers would be more comfortable with stocking it. This is also why it had the name "entertainment system" (as opposed to "video game system") and why it had the toaster oven design for cartridges (since the top loading slot used by every system before or since would have been a dead givewaway).
Seemingly altruistic social media site which performs a useful service to millions of users for free turns out to have business plan to profit from people's usage of the site, and does not in fact exist just to be free.
I'm disheartened to realize that there are still people who do not get this concept. Of course TwitPic is going to sell your photos and not cut you in on the deal. You agreed to it in the T&C. Even if it wasn't in the T&C, the clause of "oh hey we can change this at any time with no notice and you proactively agree to any changes" is probably in there. Why in the hell did you think they set up this service? Because they want to "connect people through social experiences"? Fuck no, they want to sell this shit to whomever will pay for it.
Same as Facebook. Same as LinkedIn. Same as every other site that does this for free.
You should just assume anything that you put online will be sold to the highest bidder and adjust your habits accordingly. If you don't what that photo of your dick to be on a porn site don't put it on TwitPic.
I've noticed a lot of BR discs from Netflix have no extras, forced trailers, and a silkscreened "RENTAL" on the front. I'm pretty sure that the forced trailers are specific to the rental versions of the discs. The movie companies give Netflix a special price on the discs but in exchange they remove the extras and force the trailers.
You can still fast forward to the end of them anyway.
Can't speak for him but a lot of the console's advantages are eroding.
- Hard drives have led to mandatory installations and updates. It's "drop the disc in and go" - if there's no patches. Or if it doesn't require an install. Or a new version of the OS. This is more of a PS3 issue than 360.
- Multiplayer gaming comes with a lot of the same hassles, such as port forwarding and the lag that comes with wireless
- One-time-use codes at best make used gaming less useful and at worst make the person feel like they're typing in a CD key for activation, one of the things people have left PC gaming because of.
- XBLA and PSN-purchased games are great and all but they can't be taken to your friends' house and sometimes can't be transferred to a new box.
- Add-on content which is free on the PC is often a paid feature on consoles.
if she had talent, she would've written the damn song herself.
Elvis Presley had a lot of talent and he wrote maybe two songs in his life. Some people have talent and can recognize that songwriting isn't their strength.
Then you are a poor soul. Lower my Karma, but I am never touching Windows again, unless I'm forced to do so in my job. It disgusts me to support and see other people support the tirany of Microsoft.
I don't know what's worse, that you believe Microsoft is tyrannous, or that you expect anyone to take your intelligence seriously when you can't spell tyranny.
Ah, your issue was with "gaming in general". Well, there are many gaming platforms, and not all the games on one runs on others: how's that different with Wine?
On Windows, on a hardware system that meets the requirements, the games run as expected. On Linux, with Wine, on the exact same hardware, a number of games will not run at all, and many do not run as expected. Most people find this unacceptable.
It's cute that you're desperately trying to make Linux out to be a competitive gaming platform, but it's just not.
I guess I get riled up about "cloud" stuff since it's basically a pain-in-the-ass marketing buzzword that people think is significantly different from how we've been doing things. As opposed to what it is - a "tag" attached to a point in time where these things evolved.
That and those damn "to the cloud!" commercials...
Actually they never had that problem, they just anticipated that they'd have the problem in America, so they changed the name for the American release. It was still Puckman in Japan
His Star Trek reviews don't have any of this and I think they're the better for it.
You mean, except for his having killed his wife by driving his Cadillac into a tree, and the subsequent "suicide" of his girlfriend which he covers up by having a prostitute write a suicide note before he kills her, too?
I guess I meant that he doesn't break up the review with a bunch of video-based skits. The implied subplot is fine, I'm just not a fan of the way he does it in the Star Wars reviews.
Except the reviewer has got the worst, I mean absolute worse, voice for doing reviews. He doesn't modulate his voice at all; it's that same dull, nasal-sounding voice. I got through about five minutes before I turned it off.
What might not be obvious at first is that it's a caricature named Mr. Plinkett. It's supposed to be a slovenly old man who borders on senile and psychotic. They do this to add some additional humor and characterization to the reviews, otherwise you're basically going to be listening to some nasally nerd nitpicking details. It takes a little getting used to but if you've only watched five minutes I encourage you to give it another shot with the knowledge that the voice is satire.
That said, the Star Wars reviews do suffer a little bit from a skit-based "subplot" wherein the Plinkett character has kidnapped a hooker and kept her in the basement. We think he's going to kill her but instead he shows her the prequels as torture. It's supposed to be funny but it's mostly cringeworthy. His Star Trek reviews don't have any of this and I think they're the better for it.
Slashdot Mirror
You are wrong in so many ways that it's pretty amazing. Apple supports iPhones with OS upgrades for at least three years, historically. And you're signed in for a two year contract so no, you're not supposed to buy a new one every single year.
You're taking offense to the fact that Apple is trying to entice people into buying their new phone? Tell me what vendor you're using that isn't trying to get you to buy the next one. If you say HTC I'll smack you. And as per that chart above, good luck finding another vendor with the long term support of OS upgrades.
I don't know for certain, but it appears that as long as you don't call it "Monopoly", don't feature the same graphics and fonts (i.e., the train logo), and don't use the same street names, you can do whatever you want.
Meet Late for the Sky Games. They are a company that, as near as I can tell, is 100% Monopoly clones like you describe. They make them for colleges (Aggieopoly, Longhornopoly), cities (Miamiopoly), little kids (Pirateopoly) and apparently they'll even make a custom version for you if you'll buy 1,000 units. As you can see, they even use the "-opoly" suffix. They've been doing this for decades now.
I believe it's that the rules of a game can be patented, but patents expire, and Monopoly is an old game. That's how they "get away" with it.
Also I believe that this is the reason that Parker Bros. went hogwild on the licensing thing (Star Wars Monopoly, Dallas Cowboys Monopoly, Hello Kitty Monopoly, etc.) because they saw companies like LFTS (who have apparently sold 7M copies of their games) and said "well shit, we should get in on that"
The diversity you pine for is currently around in the form of the mobile phone hardware/platform wars.
Stallone explains it here in Question #9.
Be careful what you ask for...
This is the third code release since the Zenimax acquisition (the first being the DOOM Classic iOS source and the second being the Enemy Territory source).
Also, just prior to the Zenimax acquisition they released Wolfenstein 3D Classic on iOS, a port which would not be possible (or at least nearly as easy) had it not been for open source. Someone took the Wolfenstein 3D source and the Quake 2 source and combined them to make an OpenGL port of Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack used this for a base. He also used prBoom as the basis for DOOM Classic on iOS.
So basically he was able to make the case that open source actually made money for id in the long run (he mentioned this at QuakeCon a few years back)
That's good
That's... also good I guess. I forget if we want laws on this or not.
That's bad
That's... let's see. It's anti-anti-net-neutrality. The anti's cancel each other out so we're just left with... ok that's good.
That's also good although... wait, has Slashdot ever run a favorable Obama headline since he took office? Maybe the stem cells thing...
No, you have to use a credit card, which they then charge again for subsequent nights. If you keep a DVD for 25 days then you've bought it, you don't need to return it, and they stop charging you for it (not sure if this will change any with the price change).
Besides the fact that you're singling him out for a joke skit decades ago which was written by someone else, I guess you've missed the part where, in the years since, Shatner wrote a book also called Get a Life! where he explains the skit and comes to grip with Star Trek culture. Or the dozens of things he's done since then including create a documentary about Star Trek captains.
People hate to be typecast. Hell, look at Leonard Nimoy who published a book called I Am Not Spock and then years later another book called I Am Spock .
I don't think it's humanly possible to miss the point and not get the joke any harder than you have in this instance.
Wow, you... completely missed the point. The point he was making is that you can belittle anyone's achievements if you try hard enough.
And ChromeOS.
"GOOGLE IS GOING TO TAKE ON MICROSOFT WITH ITS OWN OPERATING SYSTEM!!!"
Yes, mainstream media, Google has figured out a way to make a computer that only has a web browser. Look out Microsoft, your days are numbered. You cannot possibly hope to compete with Google's operating system which does not give the ability to write code for it.
As opposed to all the people who died in plane crashes that aren't mysterious.
All plane crashes are mysterious and suspicious. Planes aren't supposed to crash. They're supposed to stay in the air until they land safely and if they don't then something went horribly wrong. And if you're going to dispose of an enemy, why do so in a manner that the government is sure to investigate?
First, you're comparing a used book store to a new book store.
Second, HPB has higher margins because they run their bookstore like a college bookstore - buy back the textbooks for a fraction of what you're going to resell them for. And you're not worried about clearing out space for new books because your inventory is always changing.
I love HPB but there's two rules of HPB:
1. Don't ever come in looking for something specific. You won't find it. Unless it's something like a Dan Brown novel where there's a trillion copies in print, you probably won't find it.
2. If you do see something you want, get it right then and there because it won't be there next time you come in.
Consequently they attract a completely different clientele than Borders or B&N.
The Power Glove was from Mattel.
R.O.B. was never a serious peripheral from Nintendo. They were having a hard time getting the NES in stores after the video game sales crash of 1982 so they introduced aspects that made it less like a video game system and more like a toy, so that retailers would be more comfortable with stocking it. This is also why it had the name "entertainment system" (as opposed to "video game system") and why it had the toaster oven design for cartridges (since the top loading slot used by every system before or since would have been a dead givewaway).
Spot on about the Virtual Boy though.
Seemingly altruistic social media site which performs a useful service to millions of users for free turns out to have business plan to profit from people's usage of the site, and does not in fact exist just to be free.
I'm disheartened to realize that there are still people who do not get this concept. Of course TwitPic is going to sell your photos and not cut you in on the deal. You agreed to it in the T&C. Even if it wasn't in the T&C, the clause of "oh hey we can change this at any time with no notice and you proactively agree to any changes" is probably in there. Why in the hell did you think they set up this service? Because they want to "connect people through social experiences"? Fuck no, they want to sell this shit to whomever will pay for it.
Same as Facebook. Same as LinkedIn. Same as every other site that does this for free.
You should just assume anything that you put online will be sold to the highest bidder and adjust your habits accordingly. If you don't what that photo of your dick to be on a porn site don't put it on TwitPic.
Are you renting a lot of BR's from Netflix?
I've noticed a lot of BR discs from Netflix have no extras, forced trailers, and a silkscreened "RENTAL" on the front. I'm pretty sure that the forced trailers are specific to the rental versions of the discs. The movie companies give Netflix a special price on the discs but in exchange they remove the extras and force the trailers.
You can still fast forward to the end of them anyway.
Can't speak for him but a lot of the console's advantages are eroding.
- Hard drives have led to mandatory installations and updates. It's "drop the disc in and go" - if there's no patches. Or if it doesn't require an install. Or a new version of the OS. This is more of a PS3 issue than 360.
- Multiplayer gaming comes with a lot of the same hassles, such as port forwarding and the lag that comes with wireless
- One-time-use codes at best make used gaming less useful and at worst make the person feel like they're typing in a CD key for activation, one of the things people have left PC gaming because of.
- XBLA and PSN-purchased games are great and all but they can't be taken to your friends' house and sometimes can't be transferred to a new box.
- Add-on content which is free on the PC is often a paid feature on consoles.
Elvis Presley had a lot of talent and he wrote maybe two songs in his life. Some people have talent and can recognize that songwriting isn't their strength.
I don't know what's worse, that you believe Microsoft is tyrannous, or that you expect anyone to take your intelligence seriously when you can't spell tyranny.
On Windows, on a hardware system that meets the requirements, the games run as expected. On Linux, with Wine, on the exact same hardware, a number of games will not run at all, and many do not run as expected. Most people find this unacceptable.
It's cute that you're desperately trying to make Linux out to be a competitive gaming platform, but it's just not.
You're right, that is obnoxious. I apologize.
I guess I get riled up about "cloud" stuff since it's basically a pain-in-the-ass marketing buzzword that people think is significantly different from how we've been doing things. As opposed to what it is - a "tag" attached to a point in time where these things evolved.
That and those damn "to the cloud!" commercials...
You're missing the point. You're saying that you should keep local backups of things you do in the cloud.
That's wrong. You should, at best, be keeping backups in the cloud of things you do locally.
The difference between the two is that the cloud comes second, so if it goes away you don't really lose anything.
Actually they never had that problem, they just anticipated that they'd have the problem in America, so they changed the name for the American release. It was still Puckman in Japan
I guess I meant that he doesn't break up the review with a bunch of video-based skits. The implied subplot is fine, I'm just not a fan of the way he does it in the Star Wars reviews.
What might not be obvious at first is that it's a caricature named Mr. Plinkett. It's supposed to be a slovenly old man who borders on senile and psychotic. They do this to add some additional humor and characterization to the reviews, otherwise you're basically going to be listening to some nasally nerd nitpicking details. It takes a little getting used to but if you've only watched five minutes I encourage you to give it another shot with the knowledge that the voice is satire.
That said, the Star Wars reviews do suffer a little bit from a skit-based "subplot" wherein the Plinkett character has kidnapped a hooker and kept her in the basement. We think he's going to kill her but instead he shows her the prequels as torture. It's supposed to be funny but it's mostly cringeworthy. His Star Trek reviews don't have any of this and I think they're the better for it.
Yeah something tells me if Microsoft had to pay that sort of thing for Java then Sun would probably still be around.