The sad thing is how often that happens. Developers have to make unrealistic promises in order to get that initial contract all of the time, especially with MMO's. Not only do you have to make an unrealistic promise, but you have to make an even more unrealistic promise than the dev house up the street just did. The "publisher" might care, but the accounts managers making the deal don't seem to realize or care.
Of course, my opinion is that if you have to make a bad deal to get a contract, it's time to walk away. But you can't walk away from every contract and still have a company. I've seen far too many bad deals in my day because the company got hungry.
Conceptually, 0.999... keeps getting closer and closer to 1, as you add more decimal places. It approaches 1. This limit is how all calculus works. Any series that approaches another number as you flesh out the series further and further, will be that number once you have taken the series to infinity.
2 billion offenders tracked should be fine, as there are only about 300 million people in the US. But 2 billion locations? Someone needs a real database. Or a chron job to archive these puppies.
I'm sure Linux and other systems will just spoof the certificate.
Which brings up the bigger question of "how do you supply a health certificate?" You can't expect the computer to respond properly, because any virus would just spoof the right answer. You *might* be able to have the local machine certified by a remote machine, but IP addresses change constantly, and then it's just a question of spoofing to the certifying machine.
Re:Based on what we've seen so far
on
Apple vs. Google TVs
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I'm just talking in install numbers and cultural penetration. The PS3 is a great media device, though it would be nice if Netflix didn't require a disk.
Paper books handle complex images and layouts much better.
A carefully placed book can be a conversation starter.
Archives well for long-term ownership.
Used books can be cheaper.
Digital Pro:
Digital books have search functions.
It's possible to read from an ebook at home, switch to an iPhone on the subway, and read on a laptop at work on your lunch break. I.E. the ebook can live across devices.
Digital books let you adjust font / size / etc to suit your own eyes and reading style.
To be fair, when the OLPC program was announced, a laptop less than $600 was considered absurd. But the threat of the OLPC program lit a fire under Intel, and created their low cost platform initiative. Negroponte, in many ways, is responsible for the $200 netbook that I'm typing this on right now.
He seems aware of this phenomenon, when he says that threatening to build a $100 tablet may be enough to spur private industry to build a $100 tablet. He's learning.
I don't know. The OLPC project is basically founded on dreams and whimsy, but has become very real very quickly. They seem to be much more savvy now than when they started. I'm willing to give them a learning curve, especially with how grounded the XO 3 project seems compared to XO 2 or XO 1.
I think his point with port 1 vs port 2 is that the google box requires people to essentially replace their cable box, whereas the Apple TV is in addition to a working system. The Apple TV is less of a risky change, as you don't need to gut your setup to make it work. Plug it in to a spare empty port, or unplug it if you don't like it. The Google Box needs you to rewire quite a bit, and if you don't like it you need to rewire your original setup.
You pretty much described Netflix streaming. Or, if you want a solution with less of a single-point-of-failure, the PS3 will do webstreaming in a browser.
While I'd normally agree, the pace of content format changes has slowed down significantly over the years. MP4's and DiVX seem pretty solidly ensconced as the video formats to play, and sticking them on USB drives seems like a safe bet for the next 10 years.
The bleeding edge of HDMI supports 1080p60+3D. That's a pretty hard limit for any output or input. Your TV won't get better than that, and your current devices won't do any better either. Really, the question is about if there are any specific network services that will come along that your device doesn't currently support (Hulu, for example). And for that, the only defense is a generalized programmable architecture.
Re:Based on what we've seen so far
on
Apple vs. Google TVs
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Don't forget that if we're talking about set-top boxes to access network content, the Xbox 360 is in the lead, followed by the PS3. Way behind them are the Apple and Google TV's.
At the risk of overposting in this thread, there are two components here:
1. Cost to actual effort saved. If you haven't used a PS3 before, you may not know that the upgrading process is completely automated and consists of pressing the "OK" button once. The closest comparison I can make is Windows Update, if all PC's shipped by default with Windows Update running in the background. Physically handing over the $30 is harder work than updating one, let alone signing paperwork or (gasp) bringing your PS3 in to be worked on. No knowledgeable consumer would ever pay for that service.
Which leads to...
2. It smells of ambush upsell. If you're buying a new PS3, you probably don't know how it works. Buying one with the firmware pre-updated, ready to go, "PSN Plus Compatible!" might sound fine. And you might be willing to throw down the extra $30 for the peace of mind that comes with agreeing with whatever the seller says you need. Really, the consumer buys the upsell quite literally because they don't know any better. And how should someone know how trivial the upgrade process is, if they're buying a PS3 for the first time?
When you pay someone to wash your car, you do it because you know how much effort it takes, and how good (or not) you are at it, and you decide it is worth the cost. This "service," which consists of hitting the "Yes I'd like to upgrade" button when automatically prompted, is only sold to suckers who don't know any better. It's the equivalent of "pre-calibrating" a GPS in your car for $50 so that you don't have to. And by pre-calibrating, I mean turning it on until it automatically gets a signal and can lock on to your location. But if it's your first GPS, how would you know that?
That's an ambush upsell, misleading the consumer to purchase a service with basically no benefit. That's a dirty business practice that any business should be held to the fire for doing.
It's rather difficult to screw up your firmware update in a PS3. For one, the PS3 automatically selects the right firmware, downloads it, and installs in. You just have to decide between "Yes, I would like to update now" or "No, I'll update later".
If Best Buy screws up your firmware, it's a safe bet they'll give you a new PS3 and offer to transfer your saves between units for $150. They do have that little rider in their contracts that says you have to back everything up ahead of time. And while I have a hard time imagining how a consumer could screw up a firmware upgrade, somehow I fear that the Geek Squad (of barely computer literate high school students) could find a way.
I know a lot of independent IT service people who genuinely try to help their clients, and bring value to what they do. Sadly, I can't say the same about the institutionalized IT service departments.
Another way of looking at it: Best Buy is preying on people's fears and lack of knowledge. If Best Buy straight out said that this is an automatic system update that you can get by bringing the thing home and plugging it in, I might be more understanding. There genuinely are people who bought PS3's as DVD players, and which will never see a game disk or a network that could upgrade the firmware. And maybe those people aren't savvy enough to download the update from sony.com. Those people could use a service like that.
That's not who Best Buy is pitching the service to, however. The inclusion of "PSN Plus!" on the list of features shows that they're advertising to people who intend to bring this online, but who may fear lack of stability, etc. It's preying on fears and ignorance. If we want the consumers and the market to show them their sins, then as consumers we should stand up and shout. Sharing information with other consumers is a big part of what makes the market work at all, and complaining to corporate actually seems to get things done.
As a side note, I might be more understanding if they had ever once stood by their Pricematch Guarantee. So far 2 out of 2 Pricematching attempts have been a complete waste of my time, as they simply didn't want to do it.
High DPI mice start at $50, and are absolutely essential for gaming. This is just a $30 premium for complete physical configurability + extra wheel + sniper mode. That's not bad by gaming standards.
I just got OnLive running on my netbook. While it will in no way compete visually or response time with a real system, using OnLive or a similar system for an inherently laggy MMORPG over WiFi would be about perfect.
Average lifespan of a game developer before they go into something else: 5 years. Pay?: about half of what you could make coding for a bank.
While I love being a developer and wouldn't give it up, it really has to be a calling. And there are very few jobs in game development in general anyway, compared to, say, coding for banks. I forget the exact statistic, but I once calculated out that the number of students graduating with game design degrees outstripped the number of game design job openings in a given year by 10 to 1. Programming is a little better, but not by much.
Beat your students to a bloody pulp with work and negative criticism. Keep this up over many years. If they still want to do it, they might survive as a developer.
One of my old co-workers was tasked with hiring artists. All he wanted was 4 - 6 amazing images. That was enough for him to tell the person's style, and their level of artistic sophistication. Any more, and he just clicked away... or he found things to complain about, which never helped anyone's chances.
By all means, produce as much as possible. Working quickly on smaller projects (1 person, 1 week) are great ways to get better at your craft. But for your portfolio, take a critical look and only put in 5 of your very best pieces.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad thing is how often that happens. Developers have to make unrealistic promises in order to get that initial contract all of the time, especially with MMO's. Not only do you have to make an unrealistic promise, but you have to make an even more unrealistic promise than the dev house up the street just did. The "publisher" might care, but the accounts managers making the deal don't seem to realize or care.
Of course, my opinion is that if you have to make a bad deal to get a contract, it's time to walk away. But you can't walk away from every contract and still have a company. I've seen far too many bad deals in my day because the company got hungry.
Conceptually, 0.999... keeps getting closer and closer to 1, as you add more decimal places. It approaches 1. This limit is how all calculus works. Any series that approaches another number as you flesh out the series further and further, will be that number once you have taken the series to infinity.
Out of curiosity, is the sound barrier here defined as the speed of sound on earth, or the speed at the temperature of air 23 miles up?
In Italian hotels, even free users are given a unique login / password combination, such that all data they generate can be tracked back to them.
The Dutch doesn't seem like such a huge step.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz2_NkyTv8E
2 billion offenders tracked should be fine, as there are only about 300 million people in the US. But 2 billion locations? Someone needs a real database. Or a chron job to archive these puppies.
I'm sure Linux and other systems will just spoof the certificate.
Which brings up the bigger question of "how do you supply a health certificate?" You can't expect the computer to respond properly, because any virus would just spoof the right answer. You *might* be able to have the local machine certified by a remote machine, but IP addresses change constantly, and then it's just a question of spoofing to the certifying machine.
On a practical scale, how can this even work?
Apparently it is coming to the US soon. Yay!
http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/23/netflix-ps3-app-us-psn-release-update/
I'm just talking in install numbers and cultural penetration. The PS3 is a great media device, though it would be nice if Netflix didn't require a disk.
Good list! I might add:
Paper Pro:
Paper books handle complex images and layouts much better.
A carefully placed book can be a conversation starter.
Archives well for long-term ownership.
Used books can be cheaper.
Digital Pro:
Digital books have search functions.
It's possible to read from an ebook at home, switch to an iPhone on the subway, and read on a laptop at work on your lunch break. I.E. the ebook can live across devices.
Digital books let you adjust font / size / etc to suit your own eyes and reading style.
Text-to-speech
A large collection of books makes you more vulnerable to traditional weaponry.
To be fair, when the OLPC program was announced, a laptop less than $600 was considered absurd. But the threat of the OLPC program lit a fire under Intel, and created their low cost platform initiative. Negroponte, in many ways, is responsible for the $200 netbook that I'm typing this on right now.
He seems aware of this phenomenon, when he says that threatening to build a $100 tablet may be enough to spur private industry to build a $100 tablet. He's learning.
I don't know. The OLPC project is basically founded on dreams and whimsy, but has become very real very quickly. They seem to be much more savvy now than when they started. I'm willing to give them a learning curve, especially with how grounded the XO 3 project seems compared to XO 2 or XO 1.
I think his point with port 1 vs port 2 is that the google box requires people to essentially replace their cable box, whereas the Apple TV is in addition to a working system. The Apple TV is less of a risky change, as you don't need to gut your setup to make it work. Plug it in to a spare empty port, or unplug it if you don't like it. The Google Box needs you to rewire quite a bit, and if you don't like it you need to rewire your original setup.
You pretty much described Netflix streaming. Or, if you want a solution with less of a single-point-of-failure, the PS3 will do webstreaming in a browser.
While I'd normally agree, the pace of content format changes has slowed down significantly over the years. MP4's and DiVX seem pretty solidly ensconced as the video formats to play, and sticking them on USB drives seems like a safe bet for the next 10 years.
The bleeding edge of HDMI supports 1080p60+3D. That's a pretty hard limit for any output or input. Your TV won't get better than that, and your current devices won't do any better either. Really, the question is about if there are any specific network services that will come along that your device doesn't currently support (Hulu, for example). And for that, the only defense is a generalized programmable architecture.
Don't forget that if we're talking about set-top boxes to access network content, the Xbox 360 is in the lead, followed by the PS3. Way behind them are the Apple and Google TV's.
At the risk of overposting in this thread, there are two components here:
1. Cost to actual effort saved. If you haven't used a PS3 before, you may not know that the upgrading process is completely automated and consists of pressing the "OK" button once. The closest comparison I can make is Windows Update, if all PC's shipped by default with Windows Update running in the background. Physically handing over the $30 is harder work than updating one, let alone signing paperwork or (gasp) bringing your PS3 in to be worked on. No knowledgeable consumer would ever pay for that service.
Which leads to...
2. It smells of ambush upsell. If you're buying a new PS3, you probably don't know how it works. Buying one with the firmware pre-updated, ready to go, "PSN Plus Compatible!" might sound fine. And you might be willing to throw down the extra $30 for the peace of mind that comes with agreeing with whatever the seller says you need. Really, the consumer buys the upsell quite literally because they don't know any better. And how should someone know how trivial the upgrade process is, if they're buying a PS3 for the first time?
When you pay someone to wash your car, you do it because you know how much effort it takes, and how good (or not) you are at it, and you decide it is worth the cost. This "service," which consists of hitting the "Yes I'd like to upgrade" button when automatically prompted, is only sold to suckers who don't know any better. It's the equivalent of "pre-calibrating" a GPS in your car for $50 so that you don't have to. And by pre-calibrating, I mean turning it on until it automatically gets a signal and can lock on to your location. But if it's your first GPS, how would you know that?
That's an ambush upsell, misleading the consumer to purchase a service with basically no benefit. That's a dirty business practice that any business should be held to the fire for doing.
It's rather difficult to screw up your firmware update in a PS3. For one, the PS3 automatically selects the right firmware, downloads it, and installs in. You just have to decide between "Yes, I would like to update now" or "No, I'll update later".
If Best Buy screws up your firmware, it's a safe bet they'll give you a new PS3 and offer to transfer your saves between units for $150. They do have that little rider in their contracts that says you have to back everything up ahead of time. And while I have a hard time imagining how a consumer could screw up a firmware upgrade, somehow I fear that the Geek Squad (of barely computer literate high school students) could find a way.
I know a lot of independent IT service people who genuinely try to help their clients, and bring value to what they do. Sadly, I can't say the same about the institutionalized IT service departments.
Another way of looking at it: Best Buy is preying on people's fears and lack of knowledge. If Best Buy straight out said that this is an automatic system update that you can get by bringing the thing home and plugging it in, I might be more understanding. There genuinely are people who bought PS3's as DVD players, and which will never see a game disk or a network that could upgrade the firmware. And maybe those people aren't savvy enough to download the update from sony.com. Those people could use a service like that.
That's not who Best Buy is pitching the service to, however. The inclusion of "PSN Plus!" on the list of features shows that they're advertising to people who intend to bring this online, but who may fear lack of stability, etc. It's preying on fears and ignorance. If we want the consumers and the market to show them their sins, then as consumers we should stand up and shout. Sharing information with other consumers is a big part of what makes the market work at all, and complaining to corporate actually seems to get things done.
As a side note, I might be more understanding if they had ever once stood by their Pricematch Guarantee. So far 2 out of 2 Pricematching attempts have been a complete waste of my time, as they simply didn't want to do it.
- Chris
Does it even need to be an OS virus? A word macro virus can be an inherently sandboxed virus that is easy to see, understand, and clean.
How technical is this computing 101?
High DPI mice start at $50, and are absolutely essential for gaming. This is just a $30 premium for complete physical configurability + extra wheel + sniper mode. That's not bad by gaming standards.
I just got OnLive running on my netbook. While it will in no way compete visually or response time with a real system, using OnLive or a similar system for an inherently laggy MMORPG over WiFi would be about perfect.
Average lifespan of a game developer before they go into something else: 5 years.
Pay?: about half of what you could make coding for a bank.
While I love being a developer and wouldn't give it up, it really has to be a calling. And there are very few jobs in game development in general anyway, compared to, say, coding for banks. I forget the exact statistic, but I once calculated out that the number of students graduating with game design degrees outstripped the number of game design job openings in a given year by 10 to 1. Programming is a little better, but not by much.
Beat your students to a bloody pulp with work and negative criticism. Keep this up over many years. If they still want to do it, they might survive as a developer.
One of my old co-workers was tasked with hiring artists. All he wanted was 4 - 6 amazing images. That was enough for him to tell the person's style, and their level of artistic sophistication. Any more, and he just clicked away... or he found things to complain about, which never helped anyone's chances.
By all means, produce as much as possible. Working quickly on smaller projects (1 person, 1 week) are great ways to get better at your craft. But for your portfolio, take a critical look and only put in 5 of your very best pieces.