Tablets and phones are a docking station away from being full fledged computers to do work on.
Or, as gets pointed out every time this comes up... a $20 Bluetooth keyboard, and the case you already probably have which props it up. Pretty much every major tablet will support Bluetooth keyboards
I've actually found with my case which props it to a decent angle, I can type fairly ok -- I wouldn't want to do my primary work on it, but it's not nearly as defective of a platform as some people seem to think. Once it's in that position, I'm essentially touch typing again, albeit a little slower.
But I can type emails on my tablet pretty effectively. The biggest utility (for me) of a tablet is those times when you don't want to be sitting at a traditional desk/chair combo and when travelling.
It's far easier to bring a lightweight device and get access to what I need than to drag my entire laptop -- and a tablet doesn't need to get taken out of your carry-on at the airport. My last several business trips I didn't even use my laptop, but my tablet got used several hours every evening.
So far I haven't felt the need to buy a Bluletooth keyboard, but if I wanted one, they're easy enough to get.
Are people who bought an Apple product lamenting that they don't have a Microsoft product available to them?
I should think that for most people, this would be a big giant "who gives a damn?" kinda thing.
But, who knows... maybe half of all iPhone users have been saying "gee, if I only had Office, this experience would be complete". Then again, I guess some people need to read excel documents at 2am on their phone -- but I wouldn't be one of them.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Because extending the copyright for Happy Birthday is neither promoting "Progress of Science and useful Arts", nor is it a reasonable amount of time.
The lyrics have been in print since 1912, and probably before then.
So, really, a 100+ year copyright? How does this benefit anybody except companies who have obscene amounts of years to gouge for this? This should have been in the public domain decades ago.
This is just Congress giving companies the right to play the rent-seeking game for a ridiculous amount of time. The author of this is long dead, but somehow this is expected to be a revenue stream in perpetuity for some asshole company?
The fact that Di$ney was one of the companies pushing for these ridiculous copyright terms, and built their entire empire on ripping off stuff in the public domain, it's become a pretty one sided equation in favor of copyright holders -- who are then making sure that nobody else ever sees anything in the public domain. Especially because they still take stuff int he public domain and re-copyright it.
I can't even fathom how anybody thinks it's reasonable that after over 100 years this should still be copyrighted.
to all the atoms and radiation that gets sucked into a blackhole? does it just disappear into nothingness?
I'm not sure anybody knows for certain... a soup of muons and gluons and other things that happen when the laws of physics get stretched to the extreme.:-P
It doesn't 'go' anywhere (probably), and I don't think I understand well enough to know if it's even still technically 'matter'... it just becomes more mass and more gravity, or something like that.
I see what you did there. We'll have to wait until other people have a look at the data, we don't want to put a lid on it yet. Don' worry mon, evry'ting gonna be iris.
Since I've never been to med school, and flunked out of biology because I couldn't stomach the dissections... is this a really hard to find layer or something?
I should think with all of the eyes which have been dissected by now, I can only assume this is a very hard to find structure if they're just finding it now. That or it looks like its part of another layer.
Though, it just goes to remind us that modern science still doesn't know everything.
Any suggestions (beyond develop hobbies, spend time with family) on how to deal with all the new free time?
Pretty much everything boils down to those two, don't they? How you spend your free time is pretty much the definition of hobby, no?
But, a random list of stuff: golf, painting, photography, topiary, bonzai, knitting, cooking, model rocketry, robotics, sculpting, social/political activism, volunteering, write a book, astronomy, swimming, jogging, macrame, recreate the cold fusion experiments, starring in pornography, celebrity stalking, opening a booger museum...
It's your free time, what interests you? All we can do is throw out suggestions.
How about instead we just focus on facts, not ideology in education.
Sadly, because ideology directly affects what you consider to be 'facts'.
If people actually looked at facts, they might have to be faced with the idea that their ideologies are wrong. And people have no interest whatsoever in doing that, because their ideologies are Clearly Right, and those facts are Clearly Partisan spin.
It is important to remember that the people who determine it is OK to do these kinds of things are rendering opinions.
This isn't an actual court, this isn't SCOTUS. This is a bunch of people who work for you, who are already in agreement with what you're trying to do, rendering an opinion than it's okay to do it.
So when Alberto Gonzales gave the opinion that habeus corpus wasn't really a thing... it was only an opinion, but one which then got used as if it was lawful. It also demonstrated a shocking level of incompetence to be the Attorney General.
Just because you can get a couple of cronies on your legal staff to give you an opinion, that in no way makes it fact. Because if you're appointing cronies who think you can crap all over the Constitutional rights of people, you can get an 'opinion' which authorizes pretty much anything.
If you put a bunch of authoritarian pricks in a room and ask them to come up with an opinion about what they can get away with, they will come up with a decision you'd expect from a bunch of authoritarian pricks.
Contrary to what you may think, countries are still sovereign, and they won't pass a law if the population (or their representatives) is against it even if their friend the USA ask them to.
Contrary to what you may think, US bargaining tactics more or less amount to "sign this, or we will impose trade tariffs and punative fines until you comply."
It's not so much an 'ask', as we're going to exert financial and trade pressure on you. Like I said, US foreign trade policies tend to get written by industry lobbyists and quite aggressively pushed.
And, really, it's still the good old boy wink and a nod, and what the populace wants be damned.
The only way I can see this done is by using your phone while driving...
Then you are quite unimaginative.
I could go to an intersection close to my house and stand there with a camera, and I would be able to pick off people either texting or holding their phone while driving. Because every time I'm at that intersection I can see people doing exactly that.
If there was a bounty of $50 for photos like that, I could pay off my house in a few weeks. And I bet you can go to an awful lot of places and do the exact same thing.
Of course other countries don't implement the same laws as the US.
Actually they do... but usually because a US trade delegation foisted it on them after having had industry groups write the text.
SOPA, software patents, most of the egregious copyright stuff... all mostly written by industry with other countries heavily pressured to adopt them. Like the "301 watch list" -- it's written entirely by industry, lacking in any objective evidence, but is pushed by the USTR as official policy to browbeat other countries into doing what's in the best interests of US/multinational companies like Sony.
So, sarcasm or no, it's not as far off the mark as you might think.
And in other news, water is wet, and jumping off a tall building is a "bad idea."
And yet, I could stand at almost any intersection with a camera, and I bet at least 25% of all drivers are in the middle of talking or texting despite it being illegal. Some days, it seems like more.
As long as people still believe that they are so highly evolved they can do this without problem, it will continue to be one. Not unlike people who believe they're still good drivers when they're half hammered.
And as we all know, all countries worldwide implement the same laws as the US, just a few years behind.
Sometimes, a little ahead since it's US trade policy to push these laws onto their partners before they adopt the laws themselves, under the guise of coming in line with the rest of the world.
Other countries aren't pushing for more patents in software, but the US has been pushing them (and DRM, and ridiculous copyright extensions) on everyone else for years now.
Everyone should be concerned because all the other governments will see the US doing this and copy it.
And the next time the US chastises another government for this kind of thing, they'll get told to blow it out their rear.
As you say, Google, Microsoft, et al have established the precedent they'll be willing to do this... so every other government is going to tell them they want the exact same level of monitoring, and will expect to get it.
Bottom line, you can't care about this, unless you do wrong or plan on doing wrong.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Cardinal Richelieu.
See, when your government spies on everything you do, sooner or later someone will come along and decide that since they already have this information, they can use it for other things.
If you don't grasp this, I suggest you read more about Joseph McCarthy -- America is entirely capable of political persecution as any other government.
Bottom line, with your attitude, you deserve to be dragged off in the night, because you're part of the problem with the complacency and people not seeing what's really wrong here. That's kinda how I see it.
Since you're not part of the solution, you are the problem.
Twenty years ago, the US would make jokes about "papers please" and the Soviets. Now, that's just normal routine.
Or you might want to have a network connection so that when you rip a CD, it fetches info from Gracenote.
Or to use the web browser.
Or to use the DLNA features.
Or Netflix, Vudu, Amazon Instant Video, Cinemanow, Hulu.
See, I have no idea why I'd want to do any of those things on a video game console. I have computers and tablets for that.
I for one don't want to go back to the days when PC gtamers bashed consoles and console games becaus you couldn't play console doom deatmatch over the internet, or a Diablo online or an actual MMO.
I think you should have the right to do that, and I should have the right to not do that.
Microsoft's stance is that I don't get a choice in the matter, so I will use the remaining choice -- and that's not to buy this thing in the first place.
It's the forcing me to keep it online when I don't have any use cases for online in a video game console. And I'm not willing to do that. It's optional in the current XBox, but won't be in the next. So, I won't be buying the next XBox.
But why is it such a big deal for you and others like you that your gaming system has to be connected to the internet?
Because the connection doesn't benefit me, and is mostly used for Microsoft to act like douchebags and collect marketing information, as well as starting out with the premise that I must be pirating therefore I need to be closely monitored.
Last year, when Microsoft rolled out an Xbox update, they started putting ads into the games and the home screen. That was the point at which my XBox was permanently disconnected from the network. I'm not paying to buy the game, and then paying for a fucking advertising channel for them. And I'm sure as hell not giving the right to make arbitrary updates to a device I purchased any time they like just because they've updated the TOS and want to.
There is but ONE truly compelling reason why someone wouldn't want their console to ever touch the internet and that would be piracy.
Then you are completely missing the point -- the ONE compelling reason isn't piracy, it's privacy, and the right to control how I play games.
Right now I can play, and Microsoft will never know about it. I can go over to a friends with my disk, and Microsoft will never know about it. I can sell the game, and Microsoft will never know it. Now they expect to be able to have a device in my house which can report on what I do (and do you trust Microsoft after they rolled over for the NSA?), and I will need to ask permission to run a game over at a friends. And if I sign in as my account, they now have even more information about me, and can associate it with my friends.
Again, I just want to know what is your line of thinking in being so unacceptable of the evolving system.
My line of thinking is that right now I can game how and when I choose, without asking Microsoft for fucking permission. Right now I don't need to see their ads. Right now, I know damned well my game console isn't reporting back to the mothership. Right now, Microsoft doesn't need to know who the hell I am and I can live without an XBox Live account.
I don't want this because it's ramming crap down my throat that I don't want. I don't play games on-line, I don't want to buy the extra shit in their store, I don't want to rent movies from Microsoft -- I want to play a fucking video game, randomly and intermittently, and entirely offline. And there is nothing in that scenario which requires an internet connection, so this mostly just forces me to use it 'their' way.
So I don't care if you think I sound like a luddite, because you sound like someone who is too unaware of the issue to understand. So you buy it, you hand over all of your data to Microsoft, you ask for permission to take a game to a friends place. You ask for permission to sell your used games. There's simply no benefit to me to be forced to change how I play video games in order to satisfy Microsoft's business strategy or DRM wishes.
As described, that platform is pretty anti-consumer, and pretty much says "it's our way or the highway". I'm just taking them up on it.
Why are you so willing to have these things dictated to you by Microsoft? Why are you so willing to cede your right of first sale? Why are you willing to give up your privacy? Because you're 19 with ADHD and can't live without something shiny and have no clue? Or because you think these are awesome things that somehow benefit you??
Because other than being a snide little prick who is insinuating I'm both a luddite, incompetent, and living in the past, you've failed to say anything other than "we should totally just do this because I'm incapable of understanding why it's a bad idea". You're about 2 steps behind "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear".
You didn't read his link, did you? The red coloring carmine, is ground up beetles.
This isn't casual ingestion of a few incidental particles, this is an actual, listed ingredient. As in they already are intentionally using insects.
This isn't trace amounts of stuff which you can't avoid. I suspect if most people knew that most foods which have been dyed red are that color due to the presence of insects, they'd be less enthusiastic.
Lol. Good luck with that console that never touches the network. Why even bother?
I have a console now which doesn't touch the network, and it works just fine.
If you don't play on-line, don't want to sign up for an account, don't want to download extras... why would you connect it to a network? So they can collect usage stats and push down ads? Fuck that, you don't need my name and credit card information so I can play Gran Turismo alone.
Video game consoles have been something which didn't need a network for well over 20 years now. Apparently in the next generation, Microsoft has visions of being the hub for my entertainment -- and, on that point, they're entirely wrong. I'm not interested in that.
The only people I know who connect their XBox to the network are essentially teenagers and 20-somethings. For many of us who remember the 80s, on-line features aren't something we want. In fact, it's something we actively don't want.
For the way I've always played video games (solo, offline, intermittently) online features offer nothing of interest. My wife's dancing games, a driving game, a golf game and Skyrim are all I need.
So buying a console which wants to phone home constantly, track and report my usage, generally dictate to me how I can use it -- this has no value for me and I won't have it. Microsoft simultaneously wants to 'sell' me something, and have it be something which I don't own because the license says they can do anything they want and I'm just the sucker who 'bought' it.
So, either Sony keeps true to their promises, or I need to ponder buying a replacement XBox 360. The XBox 1, however, is fully out of any consideration. My previous experience with the Wii left me with a "meh" attitude towards it, so unless the new one has come a long way, it too is out of the running.
Sony has a limited window to make money from me, and from what they're saying, it's currently the only plausible option if I want a video game console.
You are being ridiculous. This is like complaining that Netflix requires a network connection.
No, because I don't plan on using the network features, the same as I don't now.
My current Xbox 360, my old Wii, and all PS3s (as far as I'm aware) have optional networking, but will still run just fine without it. So comparing it to Netflix is incorrect.
So either they can sell me a gaming console which I can still continue to use totally offline, or I won't be buying them.
I'm perfectly aware that none of these companies gives a damn about me -- but if the message is "shut up and buy it and deal with it" or "fuck off an don't buy it", then it's more than just me who is going to be saying that we're not interested in this, and if they find themselves with unsold units, too damned bad.
They can listen to or ignore their customers as they see fit, but they might find themselves unhappy with the results.
Well, either I decide I won't buy any of them now, or after they've done something like that, I'll make the same decision.
If they can update it without a network connection, fine. But if they leave me with something unusable, then I will be forced to conclude they're all assholes and withdraw my money. (Well, I know they're assholes now, but now I can play games with no internet connection)
But I don't play on-line games, don't want to participate in the in-game economy, and refuse to be monitored by a video game so advertisers can he information about me.
So either it's going to work off-line out of the box and stay that way, or it won't get bought, or eventually it will get relegated to the shit pile -- in any of those cases, my next video game console will be never be connected to a network.
I'm just some random schmuck, so I expect neither Microsoft nor Sony to care about me -- and I will give them about the same amount of consideration.
And, sadly, that will mark the end of my willingness to purchase video consoles from any of these guys.
At this point, it's which company is going to start out acting less like pricks, and which won't require an internet connection at all.
If that's the PS4, and they subsequently try to change the rules, that box will get disconnected, lit on fire, and will be the last console I ever buy. I will not have a gaming box in my house which demands to access the internet at will, because there's nothing in it for me.
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Or, as gets pointed out every time this comes up ... a $20 Bluetooth keyboard, and the case you already probably have which props it up. Pretty much every major tablet will support Bluetooth keyboards
I've actually found with my case which props it to a decent angle, I can type fairly ok -- I wouldn't want to do my primary work on it, but it's not nearly as defective of a platform as some people seem to think. Once it's in that position, I'm essentially touch typing again, albeit a little slower.
But I can type emails on my tablet pretty effectively. The biggest utility (for me) of a tablet is those times when you don't want to be sitting at a traditional desk/chair combo and when travelling.
It's far easier to bring a lightweight device and get access to what I need than to drag my entire laptop -- and a tablet doesn't need to get taken out of your carry-on at the airport. My last several business trips I didn't even use my laptop, but my tablet got used several hours every evening.
So far I haven't felt the need to buy a Bluletooth keyboard, but if I wanted one, they're easy enough to get.
Are people who bought an Apple product lamenting that they don't have a Microsoft product available to them?
I should think that for most people, this would be a big giant "who gives a damn?" kinda thing.
But, who knows ... maybe half of all iPhone users have been saying "gee, if I only had Office, this experience would be complete". Then again, I guess some people need to read excel documents at 2am on their phone -- but I wouldn't be one of them.
Because extending the copyright for Happy Birthday is neither promoting "Progress of Science and useful Arts", nor is it a reasonable amount of time.
The lyrics have been in print since 1912, and probably before then.
So, really, a 100+ year copyright? How does this benefit anybody except companies who have obscene amounts of years to gouge for this? This should have been in the public domain decades ago.
This is just Congress giving companies the right to play the rent-seeking game for a ridiculous amount of time. The author of this is long dead, but somehow this is expected to be a revenue stream in perpetuity for some asshole company?
The fact that Di$ney was one of the companies pushing for these ridiculous copyright terms, and built their entire empire on ripping off stuff in the public domain, it's become a pretty one sided equation in favor of copyright holders -- who are then making sure that nobody else ever sees anything in the public domain. Especially because they still take stuff int he public domain and re-copyright it.
I can't even fathom how anybody thinks it's reasonable that after over 100 years this should still be copyrighted.
I'm not sure anybody knows for certain ... a soup of muons and gluons and other things that happen when the laws of physics get stretched to the extreme. :-P
It doesn't 'go' anywhere (probably), and I don't think I understand well enough to know if it's even still technically 'matter' ... it just becomes more mass and more gravity, or something like that.
We'd need a TARDIS to be certain. ;-)
Thanks ... give or take a few points, that makes sense. But I think I'll pass on the pictures. ;-)
I see what you did there. We'll have to wait until other people have a look at the data, we don't want to put a lid on it yet. Don' worry mon, evry'ting gonna be iris.
Since I've never been to med school, and flunked out of biology because I couldn't stomach the dissections ... is this a really hard to find layer or something?
I should think with all of the eyes which have been dissected by now, I can only assume this is a very hard to find structure if they're just finding it now. That or it looks like its part of another layer.
Though, it just goes to remind us that modern science still doesn't know everything.
Pretty much everything boils down to those two, don't they? How you spend your free time is pretty much the definition of hobby, no?
But, a random list of stuff: golf, painting, photography, topiary, bonzai, knitting, cooking, model rocketry, robotics, sculpting, social/political activism, volunteering, write a book, astronomy, swimming, jogging, macrame, recreate the cold fusion experiments, starring in pornography, celebrity stalking, opening a booger museum ...
It's your free time, what interests you? All we can do is throw out suggestions.
Sadly, because ideology directly affects what you consider to be 'facts'.
If people actually looked at facts, they might have to be faced with the idea that their ideologies are wrong. And people have no interest whatsoever in doing that, because their ideologies are Clearly Right, and those facts are Clearly Partisan spin.
It is important to remember that the people who determine it is OK to do these kinds of things are rendering opinions.
This isn't an actual court, this isn't SCOTUS. This is a bunch of people who work for you, who are already in agreement with what you're trying to do, rendering an opinion than it's okay to do it.
So when Alberto Gonzales gave the opinion that habeus corpus wasn't really a thing ... it was only an opinion, but one which then got used as if it was lawful. It also demonstrated a shocking level of incompetence to be the Attorney General.
Just because you can get a couple of cronies on your legal staff to give you an opinion, that in no way makes it fact. Because if you're appointing cronies who think you can crap all over the Constitutional rights of people, you can get an 'opinion' which authorizes pretty much anything.
If you put a bunch of authoritarian pricks in a room and ask them to come up with an opinion about what they can get away with, they will come up with a decision you'd expect from a bunch of authoritarian pricks.
Contrary to what you may think, US bargaining tactics more or less amount to "sign this, or we will impose trade tariffs and punative fines until you comply."
It's not so much an 'ask', as we're going to exert financial and trade pressure on you. Like I said, US foreign trade policies tend to get written by industry lobbyists and quite aggressively pushed.
And, really, it's still the good old boy wink and a nod, and what the populace wants be damned.
Then you are quite unimaginative.
I could go to an intersection close to my house and stand there with a camera, and I would be able to pick off people either texting or holding their phone while driving. Because every time I'm at that intersection I can see people doing exactly that.
If there was a bounty of $50 for photos like that, I could pay off my house in a few weeks. And I bet you can go to an awful lot of places and do the exact same thing.
Finding people doing this is far too easy.
Actually they do ... but usually because a US trade delegation foisted it on them after having had industry groups write the text.
SOPA, software patents, most of the egregious copyright stuff ... all mostly written by industry with other countries heavily pressured to adopt them. Like the "301 watch list" -- it's written entirely by industry, lacking in any objective evidence, but is pushed by the USTR as official policy to browbeat other countries into doing what's in the best interests of US/multinational companies like Sony.
So, sarcasm or no, it's not as far off the mark as you might think.
And yet, I could stand at almost any intersection with a camera, and I bet at least 25% of all drivers are in the middle of talking or texting despite it being illegal. Some days, it seems like more.
As long as people still believe that they are so highly evolved they can do this without problem, it will continue to be one. Not unlike people who believe they're still good drivers when they're half hammered.
Sometimes, a little ahead since it's US trade policy to push these laws onto their partners before they adopt the laws themselves, under the guise of coming in line with the rest of the world.
Other countries aren't pushing for more patents in software, but the US has been pushing them (and DRM, and ridiculous copyright extensions) on everyone else for years now.
And the next time the US chastises another government for this kind of thing, they'll get told to blow it out their rear.
As you say, Google, Microsoft, et al have established the precedent they'll be willing to do this ... so every other government is going to tell them they want the exact same level of monitoring, and will expect to get it.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Cardinal Richelieu.
See, when your government spies on everything you do, sooner or later someone will come along and decide that since they already have this information, they can use it for other things.
If you don't grasp this, I suggest you read more about Joseph McCarthy -- America is entirely capable of political persecution as any other government.
Bottom line, with your attitude, you deserve to be dragged off in the night, because you're part of the problem with the complacency and people not seeing what's really wrong here. That's kinda how I see it.
Since you're not part of the solution, you are the problem.
Twenty years ago, the US would make jokes about "papers please" and the Soviets. Now, that's just normal routine.
See, I have no idea why I'd want to do any of those things on a video game console. I have computers and tablets for that.
I think you should have the right to do that, and I should have the right to not do that.
Microsoft's stance is that I don't get a choice in the matter, so I will use the remaining choice -- and that's not to buy this thing in the first place.
It's the forcing me to keep it online when I don't have any use cases for online in a video game console. And I'm not willing to do that. It's optional in the current XBox, but won't be in the next. So, I won't be buying the next XBox.
Because the connection doesn't benefit me, and is mostly used for Microsoft to act like douchebags and collect marketing information, as well as starting out with the premise that I must be pirating therefore I need to be closely monitored.
Last year, when Microsoft rolled out an Xbox update, they started putting ads into the games and the home screen. That was the point at which my XBox was permanently disconnected from the network. I'm not paying to buy the game, and then paying for a fucking advertising channel for them. And I'm sure as hell not giving the right to make arbitrary updates to a device I purchased any time they like just because they've updated the TOS and want to.
Then you are completely missing the point -- the ONE compelling reason isn't piracy, it's privacy, and the right to control how I play games.
Right now I can play, and Microsoft will never know about it. I can go over to a friends with my disk, and Microsoft will never know about it. I can sell the game, and Microsoft will never know it. Now they expect to be able to have a device in my house which can report on what I do (and do you trust Microsoft after they rolled over for the NSA?), and I will need to ask permission to run a game over at a friends. And if I sign in as my account, they now have even more information about me, and can associate it with my friends.
My line of thinking is that right now I can game how and when I choose, without asking Microsoft for fucking permission. Right now I don't need to see their ads. Right now, I know damned well my game console isn't reporting back to the mothership. Right now, Microsoft doesn't need to know who the hell I am and I can live without an XBox Live account.
I don't want this because it's ramming crap down my throat that I don't want. I don't play games on-line, I don't want to buy the extra shit in their store, I don't want to rent movies from Microsoft -- I want to play a fucking video game, randomly and intermittently, and entirely offline. And there is nothing in that scenario which requires an internet connection, so this mostly just forces me to use it 'their' way.
So I don't care if you think I sound like a luddite, because you sound like someone who is too unaware of the issue to understand. So you buy it, you hand over all of your data to Microsoft, you ask for permission to take a game to a friends place. You ask for permission to sell your used games. There's simply no benefit to me to be forced to change how I play video games in order to satisfy Microsoft's business strategy or DRM wishes.
As described, that platform is pretty anti-consumer, and pretty much says "it's our way or the highway". I'm just taking them up on it.
Why are you so willing to have these things dictated to you by Microsoft? Why are you so willing to cede your right of first sale? Why are you willing to give up your privacy? Because you're 19 with ADHD and can't live without something shiny and have no clue? Or because you think these are awesome things that somehow benefit you??
Because other than being a snide little prick who is insinuating I'm both a luddite, incompetent, and living in the past, you've failed to say anything other than "we should totally just do this because I'm incapable of understanding why it's a bad idea". You're about 2 steps behind "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear".
There's things you think you know that are obvious, and then there's actual science.
Sometimes, you need the proper study just to verify your hunch isn't entirely wrong -- everything else is an anecdote or a guess.
You didn't read his link, did you? The red coloring carmine, is ground up beetles.
This isn't casual ingestion of a few incidental particles, this is an actual, listed ingredient. As in they already are intentionally using insects.
This isn't trace amounts of stuff which you can't avoid. I suspect if most people knew that most foods which have been dyed red are that color due to the presence of insects, they'd be less enthusiastic.
I have a console now which doesn't touch the network, and it works just fine.
If you don't play on-line, don't want to sign up for an account, don't want to download extras ... why would you connect it to a network? So they can collect usage stats and push down ads? Fuck that, you don't need my name and credit card information so I can play Gran Turismo alone.
Video game consoles have been something which didn't need a network for well over 20 years now. Apparently in the next generation, Microsoft has visions of being the hub for my entertainment -- and, on that point, they're entirely wrong. I'm not interested in that.
The only people I know who connect their XBox to the network are essentially teenagers and 20-somethings. For many of us who remember the 80s, on-line features aren't something we want. In fact, it's something we actively don't want.
For the way I've always played video games (solo, offline, intermittently) online features offer nothing of interest. My wife's dancing games, a driving game, a golf game and Skyrim are all I need.
So buying a console which wants to phone home constantly, track and report my usage, generally dictate to me how I can use it -- this has no value for me and I won't have it. Microsoft simultaneously wants to 'sell' me something, and have it be something which I don't own because the license says they can do anything they want and I'm just the sucker who 'bought' it.
So, either Sony keeps true to their promises, or I need to ponder buying a replacement XBox 360. The XBox 1, however, is fully out of any consideration. My previous experience with the Wii left me with a "meh" attitude towards it, so unless the new one has come a long way, it too is out of the running.
Sony has a limited window to make money from me, and from what they're saying, it's currently the only plausible option if I want a video game console.
No, because I don't plan on using the network features, the same as I don't now.
My current Xbox 360, my old Wii, and all PS3s (as far as I'm aware) have optional networking, but will still run just fine without it. So comparing it to Netflix is incorrect.
So either they can sell me a gaming console which I can still continue to use totally offline, or I won't be buying them.
I'm perfectly aware that none of these companies gives a damn about me -- but if the message is "shut up and buy it and deal with it" or "fuck off an don't buy it", then it's more than just me who is going to be saying that we're not interested in this, and if they find themselves with unsold units, too damned bad.
They can listen to or ignore their customers as they see fit, but they might find themselves unhappy with the results.
Well, either I decide I won't buy any of them now, or after they've done something like that, I'll make the same decision.
If they can update it without a network connection, fine. But if they leave me with something unusable, then I will be forced to conclude they're all assholes and withdraw my money. (Well, I know they're assholes now, but now I can play games with no internet connection)
But I don't play on-line games, don't want to participate in the in-game economy, and refuse to be monitored by a video game so advertisers can he information about me.
So either it's going to work off-line out of the box and stay that way, or it won't get bought, or eventually it will get relegated to the shit pile -- in any of those cases, my next video game console will be never be connected to a network.
I'm just some random schmuck, so I expect neither Microsoft nor Sony to care about me -- and I will give them about the same amount of consideration.
And, sadly, that will mark the end of my willingness to purchase video consoles from any of these guys.
At this point, it's which company is going to start out acting less like pricks, and which won't require an internet connection at all.
If that's the PS4, and they subsequently try to change the rules, that box will get disconnected, lit on fire, and will be the last console I ever buy. I will not have a gaming box in my house which demands to access the internet at will, because there's nothing in it for me.