The biggest amount of smallness possible
on
Broadband Blimps
·
· Score: 2, Funny
From the article: "At an altitude of only 13 miles, each Stratellite will have clear line-of-site communications capability to an entire major metropolitan area as well as being able to provide coverage across major rural areas."
So what makes a rural area a "major" rural area? A complete lack of people?
... but if it's the "center of my digital life", it has to be able to play games at least as well as the next gen GBA, fit a gig or two of MP3's and play them back (while I play my GBA type games), have a nice web browser (guess I'll need an external monitor jack) read email (could do that even on a small LCD screen), send email (voice recognition or external keyboard that stays home with the monitor), and be able to do all the PDA tasks. Make it the size of my LG-10 flip phone. Battery life of 6 hours of constant use and 96 hours of stand by.
Do that and I'll take it at any price under $400 US. Otherwise, don't bother me.
...but it should cost.01 cent (or 1/100 Euro) per word entered. If every blogger had to think about what they were writing, blogs might not the emo, angsty, tedious wasteland they are now.
And yes,/. is included, so I owe Taco 53 cents. Sigs don't count.
It would be a shame if this raised the entry barrier for blogers so high that angsty teens, burnouts and uninteresting 30-somethings couldn't post about every little thing that happens to them.
So I RTFA, and it occurs to me why I don't like so many of the new games. They are button mashers. The article says (paraphrased) "You wade into a group of bad guys mashing buttons and hope to do something brilliant, which you then try to re-create. After you can do the move, you can kill everything easily." So basically, it's frustrating until it's boring.
I have been playing Ms. Pac-Man for almost 20 years, and the first maze is still challenging enough that I can't sleep through it. On the other hand, my 6 year old can usually beat it too.
Bring back gameplay and I'll buy an Xbox. Till then, it's classic coin op.
One of the reasons I collect classic coin op is the artwork. Some of it is hokey, most is simple but attention grabbing, and some of it deserves to be in museums. Star Wars, Millipede, Crystal Castles, Tron; all these games have beautiful artwork.
And I know, the article is about the game itself, not it's packaging, but this *is* game art related.:)
Didn't NASA just spend a couple hundred million bucks trying to *FIND* Martian Bugs? Crap, when a few ice crystals were found, JPL wet itself. Had we found an actual bug, who knows what kind of party would have been thrown?
[Digital Operator type voice] I'm sorry, the song you are trying to ID is by... Brittany... Spears. Please hang up, and listen to something good. [/Digital Operator type voice]
I bet they could build a pretty good profile on what interests you. Now if they only had some type of online store that could sell you something, they could really clean up.
I think the only limit will be the Martian dust collecting on their solar panels.
Maybe NASA can cut a deal with the DOJ to go easy on Martha Stewart in return for her help on this. If anyone could find a simple, yet attractive solution it's her. Recycle the impact ballons into attractive doilies for the panels or something.
Or even better, get the Anal Retentive Carpenter from SNL to make a nice "Solar Panel Cozy" for it.
Whoa, I just realized how bad guys with speech impediments must hate this whole open source thing. Does any one high up in MS have one? Is the reason they gave IE away free that Ballmer got tired of the laughing when he said "Netscwape" in meetings?
After Darl and Co. had finished, but before most of the FUD could settle, was a Q and A period. One of the most interesting questions was "Of the really large Linux users, how many have licenced from you?" The answer was "We haven't had anyone over the 5000 CPU amount buy a licence, but a couple of them are thinking about it."
Or, in other words: "No one big is buying our BS, cause they have a legal team that knows we are full of it. Or at least is willing to wait it out and see where the chips fall, rather than believing our hype." To me, that speaks volumes about their case.
After seeing the number posted on/., I dialed it up and listened. I have to say that, even though I know what they are doing is messed up, they put some very posive spin on thier situation, albiet that is the purpose of this conference call. One of the first questions in the Q and A period was "If I pay the $699, do I have rights to use the source and continue to run Linux?" Darl very neatly sidestepped half the question and answered "Yes, you can continue to run the binary (emphasis mine) within the agreement."
From that, I take it that if you pay, you can run the kernel, but they won't say you can play with it.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
"At an altitude of only 13 miles, each Stratellite will have clear line-of-site communications capability to an entire major metropolitan area as well as being able to provide coverage across major rural areas."
So what makes a rural area a "major" rural area? A complete lack of people?
If you have to call the goatse.cx guy, for goodness sake don't be looking at your cell phone screen when he answers.
Man, all this ASCII pr0n in giving me a 8==> .
... but if it's the "center of my digital life", it has to be able to play games at least as well as the next gen GBA, fit a gig or two of MP3's and play them back (while I play my GBA type games), have a nice web browser (guess I'll need an external monitor jack) read email (could do that even on a small LCD screen), send email (voice recognition or external keyboard that stays home with the monitor), and be able to do all the PDA tasks. Make it the size of my LG-10 flip phone. Battery life of 6 hours of constant use and 96 hours of stand by.
Do that and I'll take it at any price under $400 US. Otherwise, don't bother me.
... is that if I can alwas tell exactly where I am through GPS, I'll never know how fast I'm going.
The speeding tickets alone are going to kill me.
...but it should cost .01 cent (or 1/100 Euro) per word entered. If every blogger had to think about what they were writing, blogs might not the emo, angsty, tedious wasteland they are now.
/. is included, so I owe Taco 53 cents. Sigs don't count.
And yes,
It would be a shame if this raised the entry barrier for blogers so high that angsty teens, burnouts and uninteresting 30-somethings couldn't post about every little thing that happens to them.
So I RTFA, and it occurs to me why I don't like so many of the new games. They are button mashers. The article says (paraphrased) "You wade into a group of bad guys mashing buttons and hope to do something brilliant, which you then try to re-create. After you can do the move, you can kill everything easily." So basically, it's frustrating until it's boring.
I have been playing Ms. Pac-Man for almost 20 years, and the first maze is still challenging enough that I can't sleep through it. On the other hand, my 6 year old can usually beat it too.
Bring back gameplay and I'll buy an Xbox. Till then, it's classic coin op.
Pitiful negative morons bagging on the article without even looking at the website... How about a big cupful of STFU.
:)
I think I just found my new sig. It's applicable to ~40% of the posts around here.
capacity will effectively reach "infinite", being the point where no-one can use more capacity or power, no matter what the application.
You are obviously forgetting about Duke Nukem Forever.
One of the reasons I collect classic coin op is the artwork. Some of it is hokey, most is simple but attention grabbing, and some of it deserves to be in museums. Star Wars, Millipede, Crystal Castles, Tron; all these games have beautiful artwork.
:)
And I know, the article is about the game itself, not it's packaging, but this *is* game art related.
"protocol for avoiding Martian bugs"?!?
Didn't NASA just spend a couple hundred million bucks trying to *FIND* Martian Bugs? Crap, when a few ice crystals were found, JPL wet itself. Had we found an actual bug, who knows what kind of party would have been thrown?
[Digital Operator type voice] ... Spears. Please hang up, and listen to something good.
I'm sorry, the song you are trying to ID is by... Brittany
[/Digital Operator type voice]
Read the "Reasons to use a9" linked here.
I bet they could build a pretty good profile on what interests you.
Now if they only had some type of online store that could sell you something, they could really clean up.
I think the only limit will be the Martian dust collecting on their solar panels.
Maybe NASA can cut a deal with the DOJ to go easy on Martha Stewart in return for her help on this. If anyone could find a simple, yet attractive solution it's her. Recycle the impact ballons into attractive doilies for the panels or something.
Or even better, get the Anal Retentive Carpenter from SNL to make a nice "Solar Panel Cozy" for it.
Mod this guy up!!!!!
Mandwake
Swackware
WedHat
Winux
Whoa, I just realized how bad guys with speech impediments must hate this whole open source thing. Does any one high up in MS have one? Is the reason they gave IE away free that Ballmer got tired of the laughing when he said "Netscwape" in meetings?
I understand Val Kilmer is still pissed off about this.
Said he wasn't even asked.
After Darl and Co. had finished, but before most of the FUD could settle, was a Q and A period.
One of the most interesting questions was "Of the really large Linux users, how many have licenced from you?" The answer was "We haven't had anyone over the 5000 CPU amount buy a licence, but a couple of them are thinking about it."
Or, in other words: "No one big is buying our BS, cause they have a legal team that knows we are full of it. Or at least is willing to wait it out and see where the chips fall, rather than believing our hype."
To me, that speaks volumes about their case.
After seeing the number posted on /., I dialed it up and listened. I have to say that, even though I know what they are doing is messed up, they put some very posive spin on thier situation, albiet that is the purpose of this conference call.
One of the first questions in the Q and A period was "If I pay the $699, do I have rights to use the source and continue to run Linux?" Darl very neatly sidestepped half the question and answered "Yes, you can continue to run the binary (emphasis mine) within the agreement."
From that, I take it that if you pay, you can run the kernel, but they won't say you can play with it.
+5 Freakin' hillarious.
Mod this guy up!
"You forgot one:
5) You have a platonic female friend
You're desprately in love with your "friend" of 10 years,..."
Dude, have learned nothing from John Hughes' films? Make her a mix tape.
I also liked Bagman.
So you're the guy. Always wondered who you were.
{zztop}
They got a lot of nice girls up there.
A huuagh huuugh huggh huh.
{/zz top}
"Oh, and the text is mutilated. Our friendly AC replaced "power" with "penis size" in the final sentence."
You gotta admit that the story is much more compelling with the mutilated text.