For those of you who never watchd the full set of commentaries on the Futurama DVDs, there's an interesting story behind the "X" in David X. Cohen's name.
Back in the late 90's, he attempted to register his real name, "David S. Cohen", with the writer's guild. However, they already had a David S. Cohen registered with them. Due to the rules of the writer's guild, all names registered with them must be unique to avoid confusion. So, David decided to change his name over to David X. Cohen for identification purposes.
So what's the meaning of the "X" in the name? Not a damned thing! It was chosen entirely because it was weird enough to be easily recognizable.
To create a marketable (as in a full-length disc-based game, not a download) "2D" title on a next gen console, you'd have to at least keep the game assets themselves 3D and simply the camera itself so it can only pan horizontally/vertcally and track/zoom only on the axis perpendicular to the user's display (think Super Smash Brothers). This would at least allow you access to most of the effects and capabilities of the system in question... something a user who just shelled out $60 for a game is going to expect at the very minimum.
Otherwise, all of that expensve hardware, development tools and other production elements are just plain overkill for a title that could be ran on a previous generation console and for much cheaper. For example, a game like Alien Homonid just wouldn't have any market on the next gen consoles, except as a cheap download.
Also, Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony could add a meta tag code parser to assign certain characteristics/buttons on their controller to computer keys/mouse movements as properties the flash/java player understands, so the developers can focus on design and testing on their computer using the keyboard and mouse that would carry over accurately to their console playable versions.
Just to further expand on this, here's one possible scenario:
Let's say you want to created a game for the Wii similar to Hogan's Alley, only it'd be more of an archery title that would use the nunchuck/remote as the bow. In this game, you could control the horizontal/vertical aim of the bow, the cocking/power of the bow string and the shot release. as long as the Wii's flash/Java player had properties that could be tie the Wiimote/nunchuck to keystrokes or mouse movements for each possible motion type, a simple flash game you designed could play like a full-fledged Wii title.
For example, here's how one might map such a game:
Bow Aim: mouse movement --> integer value for Nunchuck horizontal/vertical position Bow cock/power: Keystroke --> integer value for distance between Nunchuck/Wiimote Hold/Fire Arrow: Keystroke/Mouse Click --> Boolean value for Wiimote "A" button
This would simulate the rough sensation of shooting a bow, using only a few pre-defined properties on the Wii flash player to map the computer equivalents.
Yeah, though the problem is that you have to learn yet another technology/software package to participate, and most likely anything you produce can't be distributed to other users outside of the club.
With Flash or Java, you'd simply have to code once and export straight onto the web for any user that wishes to play the game within a browser that's formatted specifically for their TV. Niintendo hopefuls would only have to export to NTSC, while 360 or PS3 hopefuls could support a wide range of displays as needed.
Also, Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony could add a meta tag code parser to assign certain characteristics/buttons on their controller to computer keys/mouse movements as properties the flash/java player understands, so the developers can focus on design and testing on their computer using the keyboard and mouse that would carry over accurately to their console playable versions.
Is that the same James Meade that make "timeless classic quality clothing"? You know, the ones that aren't anything like Levi Strauss. I've lived in the UK for 27 years, and I've never heard of them!
Granted, the XBox Live Arcade is well executed, but it lacks timely content releases. One or two XBLA titles per month and a few 360 game demos just isn't enough by itself to make me buy content for XBLA yet.
In the meanwhile, Nintendo has beaten Microsoft to the punch just by simply including a basic web browser. Combined with Flash and Java, one could easily pump out dozens of multi-console games to play within the web browser. All Nintendo or Microsoft would have to do is monitor the popularity of such games, then purchase the rights to create a console native version that supports all of the controller's buttons, along with console specific effects and support for things like Xbox Live's gamerscore feature.
It'd give every aspiring game developer a distinct voice on the next gen consoles, and would allow the end users to determine what games are worth cleaning up and designed specifically for their system of choice.
Hell, I'm a flash developer that has a game in the works and I'd love to see it get adopted onto a major console based on user choice, once it'ss ready to be released!
My online identity of nearly 10 years (Bones3D) is probably starting to look awfully tasty to some enterprising 3D modeling/animation software developer, since it sounds like it'd be a high end inverse kinematics system of some sort. In my case though, it's more of an amalgam of a high school nickname and the field I was trained in several years later. So the two parts are virtually unrelated.
Another fun one, would be my real name itself (James Meade), which actually is a popular clothing manufacturer out in the U.K., similar to what Levi Strauss is here in the U.S. I'm not real worried about them though, since I rarely use my real name online more than I have to.
At any rate, it helps to be aware of how your identity could be taken out of it's original context and used for commercial purposes.
Needless to say, it does bring up an important question... how much is your online identity worth to you? And on what terms would you be willing to part with it?
But that's not a new problem. It's long been known that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, owing to the brains ability to "fill in" details of events with extra information. The classic example is of course the intro Psych course where an unknown assailant kills someone before the whole class, then runs from the room. Ask everyone in the room to describe the assailant and what occurred and you're liable to get as many different stories as there are people. The brain has a way of smoothing over memories and adding in extra bits of information it correlates with experiences to help aid in recall, but this of course leads to degradation of the memory's "truth." THis result should really not come as much of a shock.
This could also explain why multiple user-modified databases, such as Wikipedia, seem to become increasingly less accurate with their information over time. The more garbage input these databases get from users who honestly believe their entries to be entirely true, the less reliable these databases become. Even with parsing out the "errant" data using a system of averages from all the other users' entries, such database are only as accurate as the users who contributed into it.
Given the above, it's probably much safer to simply collect the data you need from several sources (each with a limited number of contributors) and then develop your own collection of data tthat is relevant specifically to your own needs.
If not anything else, it just shows you exactly how detrimental an effect overly-generalized data collection and distribution can have over an entire civilization. We're getting way to lazy with our minds and are beginning to simply accept everything we see and hear from others as being fact. We've become so dependent on our precious easy-access databases that we might one day find ourselves unable to operate in a time of crisis, where every connection to such databases is completely severed.
The solution may not be in technology, but in psychology instead. If we don't start encouraging our children pick up a book and read for the sake of actually reading a book (and I mean "book" as in paper... not an e-book), we could be in for some serious trouble over the next 50 years.
If the government plans to tax the fictional economy of a game, then I think it's only fair that they set up a system to allow users to pay that tax using in-game currency/items, rather than their real-world money. There should be IRS representatives logged into each virtual world 24/7 to accept these payments... even if they are NPCs linked to a real world database. They should be able to track each virtual world's economies using the same techniques investors use for commodity trading on the world market, to know exactly what items are worth at any given time.
Once the users have paid their "taxes" using in-game currency/items, it should be the responsibility of the government to sell whatever they get in order to collect any real-world money.
Unlike the real world, the economies of virtual worlds are not backed by anything of real world value. If the government starts taxing these economies, where does that leave the game developers/publishers in the equation? Would it become illegal for them to suddenly "pull the plug" on their games a few years down the road, when it starts costing them more money to continue hosting their virtual world than they are making off it? Also could certain players with ties to the developers end up doing prison time if they learn the game will be discontinued and cash out a few days beforehand?
There's a lot of ways this could get ugly if the government actually starts taxing virtual economies.
It's the fact that Rockstar didn't DECLARE there were boobies to the ESRB.
Despite the fact that third party hacks had to be applied to the game to access said boobage...
It is not uncommon practice for developers to leave unused code/content in their software. You can find examples of this everywhere if you take a hex editor to just about any program and read the developer comments. This is stuff intentionally made to never be seen by the end user in the final product, and are merely in there for evaluation/debugging purposes.
This kind of ruling is not only going to create new forms of expenses game developers will have to deal with, to try locating and plugging up any and all potential holes that a third party could use to access "features" not intented for public use, but will also eventually introduce unecessary expenses and effort on the part of the civilian-owned ESRB to pound on every inch of every title it reviews for potential exploit points in the software where such third party modifications might be made. (Not to mention exploring the hypothetical implications of how a third party *might* use these exploitable areas before they can render a rating.)
Basically, this means two things, should a lawsuit like this be successful:
1. Third party mods will no longer be encouraged by developers, thus decreasing the long term value of their games to the end user. 2. The ESRB will become so costly to operate at the civilian level, that it will eventually end up becoming a government-controlled entity. (This could have all sorts of nasty implications we can't even yet begin to imagine, especially under the current administration.)
Doesn't this sort of thing make owning and operating a search engine a risky venture? Should you go to prison just because your particular search engine Just happens to be good at locating certain types of data hosted by completely unrelated entities? Just because a user does a search for "*.mp3" files doesn't necessarily imply intent to commit intellectual property "theft".
Just another example of our already corrupted legal system creating a classification of crime just so it can witchhunt for "criminals".
Ok, maybe I need to be a bit more specific on this... demos are not important in terms of game console users.
For years, computer users have had the option to download demos of games right onto their hard drive for evaluation before purchase. But as for game consoles, this is an entirely new concept. People who buy game consoles demand convenience in their gaming experience. Very few people I know would knowingly walking up to their game console, pop in a demo game disc just to get five or ten minutes of use out of it. The physical act of disc swapping is far different than double-clicking on an icon. If I'm going to bother getting up to put in a game, it better damned well be a full version of the game in question that will at least bring me a couple good hours of entertainment.
Personally, I'd start off by making the students aware that this whole concept of intellectual "property", is a marketing gimmick that attempts to apply a fictitious "value" to something that doesn't physically exist. While people should be credited for their ideas, they shouldn't have the ability to claim "ownership" over them once they share them with others.
Just as the perception of reality is relative to the observer, so are ideas. Eventually a shared idea will be improved upon, time and time again each time it's passed on to others. At some point, the new version of the original idea will individualize itself and become original in and of itself.
By assigning these fake "values" and "ownerships" to people's ideas, we are doing humanity a great disservice. It places artificial boundaries around how new ideas can be formed and ultimately inhibits the progress of mankind as a whole. Eventually, we'll become so wrapped up in preserving these fake intellectual property "rights", that our race will stagnate and will ultimately drive itself into extinction.
While some people prefer to try before they buy, there are a heck of a lot more people who buy games strictly on impulse. It's not much different than buying a DVD. No one intentionally goes looking around for five-minute clips of a movie they might be interested in buying before they buy it... they just buy it.
I was once a huge fan of the demo download stuff on Xbox Live after buying my Xbox 360, but I've learned over the months that the downloadable demos are rarely representative of the final product. The demos are often loaded with bugs and use inferior textures/models, which has actually driven me away from buying some game titles that I later found out were good in their final versions. As a result, I've often downloaded game demos of titles I was interested in, but rarely actually played any of them before buying the game itself.
To some extent, demos are important to a key few individuals. But claiming that demos are vital to the entire market is complete rubbish.
This type of condition is not fun to deal with. In my case, it locked my left vocal chord into a permanently "open" state, making speech nearly impossible. It was like unintentional whispering, but but you also quickly got out of breath while doing it.
Ultimately, it resulted in a having a highly invasive surgery that locked the vocal chord into the "closed" state. I can speak at a somewhat normal level now, but it's extremely raspy and causes me to go silent if I get too stressed. So yelling at someone is still impossible.
Too bad to see such a good company go. I've checked their site regularly for years to look for interesting items I could use with my curent gaming hardware, such as the Japan-only Nintendo DS web browser. I'm sure someone else will eventually take Lik-Sang's place, but no one will ever have such detailed information about foreign products like Lik-Sang offered.
I personally think the article title has it about right. People don't generally care about the brand of cell phone, they care about the service plan offered with it. Why do you think most phones are constructed so poorly they're basically disposable? If the chinsy little motorola iTunes phones didn't take off, why would a phone that has a full blown iPod be received any better? Phones are almost always a utility first, and a source of entertainment last.
If Apple really wants to enter the cell phone business, they should focus on service, rather than hardware, and open the service to compatible brands/models with the processing power to utilize whatever services they plan to offer. One possible use for an Apple-based cellular service, would be to merge ichat support into it. That way, a cell phone could contact a user with VOIP by their ichat/aim user id... or an ichat/aim user could double click on a user to automatically dial their cell phone and initiate an audio chat with that person when the call is answered.
But if Apple goes on to use a closed system with only links to iTMS, I can't see how such a product would succeed. They'd have more luck simply giving the 6G iPod a built in wifi adapter to access itunes music store directly, when it's in range of an open network.
Yet, the response is always the same. Apple is a hardware company first, and a software company second. Especially now, where they are selling actual intel PCs with their logo slapped on them. Without the income generated from sales of such hardware (and the ipod), Apple could not survive in this market. Mac OS X is a decent OS, but not good enough to convince companies and schools around the world to spend thousands on software to make the transition away from the more commonly used Windows OS.
Perhaps if Microsoft wasn't so dominant in the software arena, Apple could get out of the hardware business, but until that day comes, Apple will always be primarily a hardware company above all else.
This is probably negligible compared to the power consumed by a hard drive, which actually has a good deal of mass to content with. However, I'd be more curious if this app could set the fan rotation high enough that it destroys the fan itself. if it didn't burn the fan out itself, could the forces exerted on the fan through constant angular velocity, combined with air resistance, cause the fan to tear itself apart?
Agreed. The $50 down on it would be the dealbreaker for me. It was understandable for the PS3, which will be near-impossible to buy, but the Wii is going to have so many units available at launch, I'd be surprised if you couldn't walk into your average walmart a few minutes before midnight on the 18th and walk back out with a shiny new Wii in hand without fighting off a huge mob in the process. (In fact, this is exactly what I'm planning to do.)
Anyone spending money to pre-order the Wii is a fool.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it, "All glory to the Hypnotoad!"
For those of you who never watchd the full set of commentaries on the Futurama DVDs, there's an interesting story behind the "X" in David X. Cohen's name.
Back in the late 90's, he attempted to register his real name, "David S. Cohen", with the writer's guild. However, they already had a David S. Cohen registered with them. Due to the rules of the writer's guild, all names registered with them must be unique to avoid confusion. So, David decided to change his name over to David X. Cohen for identification purposes.
So what's the meaning of the "X" in the name? Not a damned thing! It was chosen entirely because it was weird enough to be easily recognizable.
To create a marketable (as in a full-length disc-based game, not a download) "2D" title on a next gen console, you'd have to at least keep the game assets themselves 3D and simply the camera itself so it can only pan horizontally/vertcally and track/zoom only on the axis perpendicular to the user's display (think Super Smash Brothers). This would at least allow you access to most of the effects and capabilities of the system in question... something a user who just shelled out $60 for a game is going to expect at the very minimum.
Otherwise, all of that expensve hardware, development tools and other production elements are just plain overkill for a title that could be ran on a previous generation console and for much cheaper. For example, a game like Alien Homonid just wouldn't have any market on the next gen consoles, except as a cheap download.
The Wii is supposed to include a copy of the Opera brower free for the first half-year once it's available.
Also, Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony could add a meta tag code parser to assign certain characteristics/buttons on their controller to computer keys/mouse movements as properties the flash/java player understands, so the developers can focus on design and testing on their computer using the keyboard and mouse that would carry over accurately to their console playable versions.
Just to further expand on this, here's one possible scenario:
Let's say you want to created a game for the Wii similar to Hogan's Alley, only it'd be more of an archery title that would use the nunchuck/remote as the bow. In this game, you could control the horizontal/vertical aim of the bow, the cocking/power of the bow string and the shot release. as long as the Wii's flash/Java player had properties that could be tie the Wiimote/nunchuck to keystrokes or mouse movements for each possible motion type, a simple flash game you designed could play like a full-fledged Wii title.
For example, here's how one might map such a game:
Bow Aim: mouse movement --> integer value for Nunchuck horizontal/vertical position
Bow cock/power: Keystroke --> integer value for distance between Nunchuck/Wiimote
Hold/Fire Arrow: Keystroke/Mouse Click --> Boolean value for Wiimote "A" button
This would simulate the rough sensation of shooting a bow, using only a few pre-defined properties on the Wii flash player to map the computer equivalents.
FYI... the Gamecube's code name was originally "Dolphin". It's a freakin' geek joke!
What ever happened to the Slashdot where a joke like that would have been gotten...
Yeah, though the problem is that you have to learn yet another technology/software package to participate, and most likely anything you produce can't be distributed to other users outside of the club.
With Flash or Java, you'd simply have to code once and export straight onto the web for any user that wishes to play the game within a browser that's formatted specifically for their TV. Niintendo hopefuls would only have to export to NTSC, while 360 or PS3 hopefuls could support a wide range of displays as needed.
Also, Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony could add a meta tag code parser to assign certain characteristics/buttons on their controller to computer keys/mouse movements as properties the flash/java player understands, so the developers can focus on design and testing on their computer using the keyboard and mouse that would carry over accurately to their console playable versions.
Is that the same James Meade that make "timeless classic quality clothing"? You know, the ones that aren't anything like Levi Strauss. I've lived in the UK for 27 years, and I've never heard of them!
Yeah, probably...
Must have just been the initial flattery talking.
Yeah, yeah... we know the Wii is cool and all, but calling the Gamecube already extinct is a bit over-dramstic, don't you think?
Granted, the XBox Live Arcade is well executed, but it lacks timely content releases. One or two XBLA titles per month and a few 360 game demos just isn't enough by itself to make me buy content for XBLA yet.
In the meanwhile, Nintendo has beaten Microsoft to the punch just by simply including a basic web browser. Combined with Flash and Java, one could easily pump out dozens of multi-console games to play within the web browser. All Nintendo or Microsoft would have to do is monitor the popularity of such games, then purchase the rights to create a console native version that supports all of the controller's buttons, along with console specific effects and support for things like Xbox Live's gamerscore feature.
It'd give every aspiring game developer a distinct voice on the next gen consoles, and would allow the end users to determine what games are worth cleaning up and designed specifically for their system of choice.
Hell, I'm a flash developer that has a game in the works and I'd love to see it get adopted onto a major console based on user choice, once it'ss ready to be released!
My online identity of nearly 10 years (Bones3D) is probably starting to look awfully tasty to some enterprising 3D modeling/animation software developer, since it sounds like it'd be a high end inverse kinematics system of some sort. In my case though, it's more of an amalgam of a high school nickname and the field I was trained in several years later. So the two parts are virtually unrelated.
Another fun one, would be my real name itself (James Meade), which actually is a popular clothing manufacturer out in the U.K., similar to what Levi Strauss is here in the U.S. I'm not real worried about them though, since I rarely use my real name online more than I have to.
At any rate, it helps to be aware of how your identity could be taken out of it's original context and used for commercial purposes.
Needless to say, it does bring up an important question... how much is your online identity worth to you? And on what terms would you be willing to part with it?
But that's not a new problem. It's long been known that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, owing to the brains ability to "fill in" details of events with extra information. The classic example is of course the intro Psych course where an unknown assailant kills someone before the whole class, then runs from the room. Ask everyone in the room to describe the assailant and what occurred and you're liable to get as many different stories as there are people. The brain has a way of smoothing over memories and adding in extra bits of information it correlates with experiences to help aid in recall, but this of course leads to degradation of the memory's "truth." THis result should really not come as much of a shock.
This could also explain why multiple user-modified databases, such as Wikipedia, seem to become increasingly less accurate with their information over time. The more garbage input these databases get from users who honestly believe their entries to be entirely true, the less reliable these databases become. Even with parsing out the "errant" data using a system of averages from all the other users' entries, such database are only as accurate as the users who contributed into it.
Given the above, it's probably much safer to simply collect the data you need from several sources (each with a limited number of contributors) and then develop your own collection of data tthat is relevant specifically to your own needs.
If not anything else, it just shows you exactly how detrimental an effect overly-generalized data collection and distribution can have over an entire civilization. We're getting way to lazy with our minds and are beginning to simply accept everything we see and hear from others as being fact. We've become so dependent on our precious easy-access databases that we might one day find ourselves unable to operate in a time of crisis, where every connection to such databases is completely severed.
The solution may not be in technology, but in psychology instead. If we don't start encouraging our children pick up a book and read for the sake of actually reading a book (and I mean "book" as in paper... not an e-book), we could be in for some serious trouble over the next 50 years.
If the government plans to tax the fictional economy of a game, then I think it's only fair that they set up a system to allow users to pay that tax using in-game currency/items, rather than their real-world money. There should be IRS representatives logged into each virtual world 24/7 to accept these payments... even if they are NPCs linked to a real world database. They should be able to track each virtual world's economies using the same techniques investors use for commodity trading on the world market, to know exactly what items are worth at any given time.
Once the users have paid their "taxes" using in-game currency/items, it should be the responsibility of the government to sell whatever they get in order to collect any real-world money.
Unlike the real world, the economies of virtual worlds are not backed by anything of real world value. If the government starts taxing these economies, where does that leave the game developers/publishers in the equation? Would it become illegal for them to suddenly "pull the plug" on their games a few years down the road, when it starts costing them more money to continue hosting their virtual world than they are making off it? Also could certain players with ties to the developers end up doing prison time if they learn the game will be discontinued and cash out a few days beforehand?
There's a lot of ways this could get ugly if the government actually starts taxing virtual economies.
It's the fact that Rockstar didn't DECLARE there were boobies to the ESRB.
Despite the fact that third party hacks had to be applied to the game to access said boobage...
It is not uncommon practice for developers to leave unused code/content in their software. You can find examples of this everywhere if you take a hex editor to just about any program and read the developer comments. This is stuff intentionally made to never be seen by the end user in the final product, and are merely in there for evaluation/debugging purposes.
This kind of ruling is not only going to create new forms of expenses game developers will have to deal with, to try locating and plugging up any and all potential holes that a third party could use to access "features" not intented for public use, but will also eventually introduce unecessary expenses and effort on the part of the civilian-owned ESRB to pound on every inch of every title it reviews for potential exploit points in the software where such third party modifications might be made. (Not to mention exploring the hypothetical implications of how a third party *might* use these exploitable areas before they can render a rating.)
Basically, this means two things, should a lawsuit like this be successful:
1. Third party mods will no longer be encouraged by developers, thus decreasing the long term value of their games to the end user.
2. The ESRB will become so costly to operate at the civilian level, that it will eventually end up becoming a government-controlled entity. (This could have all sorts of nasty implications we can't even yet begin to imagine, especially under the current administration.)
Doesn't this sort of thing make owning and operating a search engine a risky venture? Should you go to prison just because your particular search engine Just happens to be good at locating certain types of data hosted by completely unrelated entities? Just because a user does a search for "*.mp3" files doesn't necessarily imply intent to commit intellectual property "theft".
Just another example of our already corrupted legal system creating a classification of crime just so it can witchhunt for "criminals".
Ok, maybe I need to be a bit more specific on this... demos are not important in terms of game console users.
For years, computer users have had the option to download demos of games right onto their hard drive for evaluation before purchase. But as for game consoles, this is an entirely new concept. People who buy game consoles demand convenience in their gaming experience. Very few people I know would knowingly walking up to their game console, pop in a demo game disc just to get five or ten minutes of use out of it. The physical act of disc swapping is far different than double-clicking on an icon. If I'm going to bother getting up to put in a game, it better damned well be a full version of the game in question that will at least bring me a couple good hours of entertainment.
Personally, I'd start off by making the students aware that this whole concept of intellectual "property", is a marketing gimmick that attempts to apply a fictitious "value" to something that doesn't physically exist. While people should be credited for their ideas, they shouldn't have the ability to claim "ownership" over them once they share them with others.
Just as the perception of reality is relative to the observer, so are ideas. Eventually a shared idea will be improved upon, time and time again each time it's passed on to others. At some point, the new version of the original idea will individualize itself and become original in and of itself.
By assigning these fake "values" and "ownerships" to people's ideas, we are doing humanity a great disservice. It places artificial boundaries around how new ideas can be formed and ultimately inhibits the progress of mankind as a whole. Eventually, we'll become so wrapped up in preserving these fake intellectual property "rights", that our race will stagnate and will ultimately drive itself into extinction.
While some people prefer to try before they buy, there are a heck of a lot more people who buy games strictly on impulse. It's not much different than buying a DVD. No one intentionally goes looking around for five-minute clips of a movie they might be interested in buying before they buy it... they just buy it.
I was once a huge fan of the demo download stuff on Xbox Live after buying my Xbox 360, but I've learned over the months that the downloadable demos are rarely representative of the final product. The demos are often loaded with bugs and use inferior textures/models, which has actually driven me away from buying some game titles that I later found out were good in their final versions. As a result, I've often downloaded game demos of titles I was interested in, but rarely actually played any of them before buying the game itself.
To some extent, demos are important to a key few individuals. But claiming that demos are vital to the entire market is complete rubbish.
This type of condition is not fun to deal with. In my case, it locked my left vocal chord into a permanently "open" state, making speech nearly impossible. It was like unintentional whispering, but but you also quickly got out of breath while doing it.
Ultimately, it resulted in a having a highly invasive surgery that locked the vocal chord into the "closed" state. I can speak at a somewhat normal level now, but it's extremely raspy and causes me to go silent if I get too stressed. So yelling at someone is still impossible.
Too bad to see such a good company go. I've checked their site regularly for years to look for interesting items I could use with my curent gaming hardware, such as the Japan-only Nintendo DS web browser. I'm sure someone else will eventually take Lik-Sang's place, but no one will ever have such detailed information about foreign products like Lik-Sang offered.
I personally think the article title has it about right. People don't generally care about the brand of cell phone, they care about the service plan offered with it. Why do you think most phones are constructed so poorly they're basically disposable? If the chinsy little motorola iTunes phones didn't take off, why would a phone that has a full blown iPod be received any better? Phones are almost always a utility first, and a source of entertainment last.
If Apple really wants to enter the cell phone business, they should focus on service, rather than hardware, and open the service to compatible brands/models with the processing power to utilize whatever services they plan to offer. One possible use for an Apple-based cellular service, would be to merge ichat support into it. That way, a cell phone could contact a user with VOIP by their ichat/aim user id... or an ichat/aim user could double click on a user to automatically dial their cell phone and initiate an audio chat with that person when the call is answered.
But if Apple goes on to use a closed system with only links to iTMS, I can't see how such a product would succeed. They'd have more luck simply giving the 6G iPod a built in wifi adapter to access itunes music store directly, when it's in range of an open network.
Yet, the response is always the same. Apple is a hardware company first, and a software company second. Especially now, where they are selling actual intel PCs with their logo slapped on them. Without the income generated from sales of such hardware (and the ipod), Apple could not survive in this market. Mac OS X is a decent OS, but not good enough to convince companies and schools around the world to spend thousands on software to make the transition away from the more commonly used Windows OS.
Perhaps if Microsoft wasn't so dominant in the software arena, Apple could get out of the hardware business, but until that day comes, Apple will always be primarily a hardware company above all else.
So where's the giant onion that makes these guys?
This is probably negligible compared to the power consumed by a hard drive, which actually has a good deal of mass to content with. However, I'd be more curious if this app could set the fan rotation high enough that it destroys the fan itself. if it didn't burn the fan out itself, could the forces exerted on the fan through constant angular velocity, combined with air resistance, cause the fan to tear itself apart?
Agreed. The $50 down on it would be the dealbreaker for me. It was understandable for the PS3, which will be near-impossible to buy, but the Wii is going to have so many units available at launch, I'd be surprised if you couldn't walk into your average walmart a few minutes before midnight on the 18th and walk back out with a shiny new Wii in hand without fighting off a huge mob in the process. (In fact, this is exactly what I'm planning to do.)
Anyone spending money to pre-order the Wii is a fool.