Isn't anybody else besides Kaspersky discovering these things? On the one hand, it is in their best interest to find out as much as they can about this new kind of virus. On the other hand, I get a bit nervous when there appears to be only 1 source for information.
There are downloader addons that account for this asinine behavior and will follow the links until the link being saved has a image extension to it. Or for the really obtuse sites that deliberately mess up content types, you can create a rule to force the content to an image type.
Not that I have ever done this or anything......*whistles*
If it's something embedded, they'll have it behind layers of security.
I take umbrage at this statement. It is never wise to assume anything when it comes to security. And if you've been following the articles related to SCADA systems and industrial security that have been popping up lately, it is obvious that the industrial controls market somehow thinks that *their* systems will never get a virus anyway. With the latest crop of SCADA software touting Cloud Storage/Control and Mobile Access as the latest and greatest _must have_ features, security will be more of a concern than ever.
My opinion here, but anybody that wants cloud control for industrial systems should be hung by their balls and hit in the head with a shovel. It's a stupid idea and fraught with problems. Cloud data storage - not so bad, but still a gateway for countless future problems.
My take on it is there is a significant percentage of younger folks who don't have the drive and the work ethic that they did back then. Not entirely accurate, since people trained in highly skilled professions tend to take their jobs quite seriously and work just as hard (if not harder) than older generations.
But that's my own view. Who the hell knows what he was referring to.
". Nearly every one of these people are accidents waiting to happen. I" that would be nice if that statement was actually based on something.
Funny I thought the rest of the paragraph was a series of statements why I think that way. I must of been imagining it. Good thing I wasn't driving!
Sorry to say I don't have time, money or resources to get a study done to test the anecdotal stories of incidents like these so a critical thinker such as yourself could refute it with a slight of objectivity.
I agree with the spirit of the recommendation, but not the way it is suggested.
FACT: People are distracted to varying degrees while performing normal driving.
There are countless reasons why the driver of a car can be distracted in the normal operation of a vehicle: serious conversation with a passenger, yelling at the unruly spawn in the backseat, fishing around in the glove compartment, windshield is dirty and driving during dusk when the sun is shining directly in your eyes, etc etc.
FACT: Personal electronics are an additional distraction while driving.
If I'm using my phone GPS capability while actively navigating an unfamiliar area downtown in a huge city, any point I take my eyes off the road is an opportunity to be in an accident. Best case scenario: The GPS device is completely hands off. Fortunately, my upgraded smartphone has this. Answering a phone is very distracting. You have to find it or fish it out of your pants pocket, look at the device to unlock it, and press the button to answer it. Then talking on the phone is distracting. Some conversations more than others of course. It would be great if a large percentage of people could judge for themselves when they exceed the threshold of not paying attention to the road, but unfortunately, most people are incapable of this judgement call.
Personally, I never answer the phone while driving. If it is important, they'll leave a message and I'll call back later. That's not to suggest everybody should be that way, but I do think a hands off system for answering a call in a car would be best. Instead of a luxury item in a car, I think every car made should have a hands off system the easily integrates with the car sound system. A technical nightmare right now, but with a few mandates to the right companies, it could be a reality in as little as 5 years.
What I literally hate seeing is people who talk on the phone nearly non stop while driving the car. Nearly every one of these people are accidents waiting to happen. I am sorry, but you cannot concentrate on driving while always talking on a phone. If you have to make a phone call or answer it, make it short and sweet. You'll live longer and you can talk longer when you are not driving. Driving is not an afterthought - no matter how long you have been doing it. It requires varying degrees of concentration. Most of the time driving is boring, but you need the mental capacity to respond quickly to bad conditions.
In a my perfect world, talking on the phone while driving would be punishable the same way as driving while under the influence. Ergo, the cop sees you talking on the phone, they get an opportunity to pull you over / ticket you and you get to explain your case to the judge or pay the fine. Repeated infractions get stiffer and stiffer fines until at some point you get your license taken away from you.
For those that absolutely have to talk while driving, get a hands off system for your vehicle.
Siri needing a constant network location to work does make sense. Quite a large subset of questions Siri is going to field will be location based in some fashion. Humans use their location to infer information about conclusions, there isn't a reason why Siri can't do the same. Especially given the limited ways Siri can 'sense' it's environment. I certainly agree that not reading back answers to some queries is of limited usefulness. Being at beta level software I can give it a pass for that. Basically, I want it to be at a level where I can ask it a non-congruous question (think Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit), it locates the information quickly, then parses the information and reads back the relevant portion.
Siri needing a constant network location to work does make sense. Quite a large subset of questions Siri is going to field will be location based in some fashion. Humans use their location to infer information about conclusions, there isn't a reason why Siri can't do the same. Especially given the limited ways Siri can 'sense' it's environment. I certainly agree that not reading back answers to some queries is of limited usefulness. Being at beta level software I can give it a pass for that. Basically, I want it to be at a level where I can ask it a non-congruous question (think Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit), it locates the information quickly, then parses the information and reads back the relevant portion.
This is common knowledge for damn near everybody on Slashdot, but for those who don't know:
It's not the browser cookie that is tracking the browser activities, it is the Facebook included javascript that recognizes the fb cookie and reports that this particular browser has visited this website/page. The cookie is only data on the user's machine and that is used to log where that browser has gone to. That's why these social sites (and porn sites, etc.) are so insidious. You may think that no longer visiting them is enough but it isn't. A good practice is to clean out your cookies once a month, and anything you don't immediately recognize, delete. Most users won't take the time to do that, There was an extension that changed the cookie lifespan to 1 month but I can't seem to find that now. Another good thing to do is run the addon NoScript. Again, for most users they will quickly tire of approving scripts repeatedly. The last thing that is good to do is to add an entry into your hosts file that points facebook.com to 127.0.0.1. There, never having to worry about facebook insecurities again, without being too paranoid.
Make it an audience participation movie. A few members of the audience, random chosen and willing or even an auction, will be issued an arcade light gun (ala Duck Hunt) and at certain points in the movie will need to shoot the aliens on the screen. Simple infrared light sensors behind the screen will trigger the different projectors upstairs to show either a successful or a failure scene ending. Gimmicky? Yes. Worse than the current 3D craze? Eh, make the movie a decent parody on it's own source material, and I'd go see it at least twice to see how it was different based on successful shooting(s) or not. That's twice more than I'm seeing 3D stuff these days.
*stands up tentatively* "Hi, my name is Mike and I'm a disenfranchised video gamer." [rest of room, which is packed] "Hi Mike."
I've played my share of FPS and deathmatch multiplayer. It was super fun at the time, but I was never good enough to be competitive at it. The general attitude of the players now is not something I want to associate with. I only want to have fun, they seem to want to lock horns and piss in each other's faces to establish some kind of online social order of dominance. The third person ensemble piece games (Mass Effect, Dragon's Age) are fun, but I've exhausted nearly everything novel out of them. Minecraft enjoyed a big mind share for a while, and I'll likely return to that quite often like an old friend, but it doesn't capture my attention much anymore. Popcap games are fun for a 30 minute diversion, but have no holding power.
The one genre I really REALLY enjoyed, the Splinter Cell series, was killed by their masters and the overzealous DRM releases. Sigh. I've tried to pick up and enjoy Metal Gear Solid games, but it just isn't the same. What I need to do is get really drunk and try again, wipe the brain pan of any coherent memories of Splinter Cell to give Metal a solid shake (double pun intended).
I'll play Mass Effect 3 when it comes out and I have really low expectations, so I'm hoping to be surprised there. Diablo 3 looks too much like an isometric version of World of Warcraft for me to get excited about it anymore, that and Battle.net isn't my idea of a good thing at all. Games used to be about connecting gamers together to play games. Now everything has to be "social" while I broadcast my gaming habits to the world. That and Mr. Bobby Kotick pisses me off just on principle.
"Shit," I say with sudden realization, "I finally grew up." *sits down*
Sadly, that's the way the news works these days, it's not news unless it's sensational news. Well reasoned and accurate statements are cold and boring, who the hell wants to read that? Urmm...personally, I do and I know a lot of people that do. People with the ability to think critically. Which unfortunately is a minority everywhere. Hence, no place is immune from the sensational headlines being needed to garner page hits. *sigh*
I followed and read the path of links all the way to the core announcement and along the way I heard mention of a switch in the firmware that could be modified that prevents the PS3 from phoning home. If true, that would definitely be something that I'd be interested in doing. Given the recent security breach, I never want to have the PS3 connect to PSN again. I only play single player games, so I don't even have a need for PSN other than DLC (which I hate and refuse to buy) and game updates (it won't be long before those are available offline through the PS3 underground scene).
Plus at this time in my life, I have enough time to start considering rewriting the basic interface that the PS3 uses. It'd also be nice to be able to use a modern version of opera and a few other utilities.
The real news is the last paragraph of the article:
"Van de Burgwal also discovered that his multi-processor chip would work well for digital radio reception on smartphones, due to its low energy use. The technology is being further developed by U Twente spin-off company Recore Systems."
There is more money to be had from a general purpose antenna receiver in smartphones. At the very minimum, faster ROI which is what will drive the faster development/implementation into the consumer market.
What the article doesn't say is just as interesting. I'd be more interested in signal loss ratios and other engineering things. Maybe the dishes are better at what they do than what this chip can do. Still, it's nice to see promising research like this that will drive further research projects.
http://apple.com/store. Choose the macbook. Add all the internal upgrades (RAM, HDD). And it's not even close to $1,500. Not to mention as a teacher (and with her daughter being a student) they'd be entitled to a fairly big discount, at least 15% when I bought mine.
But, if I add AppleCare, a *very* common thing for non computer people to do, it is 1498 USD. Take off %15 for educational discount, add roughly 10% for s&h and the price is still very close to 1500 USD.
I wonder what happens when you want to type garbage or inane abbreviations: e.g. lol omgwtfbbq brb afk QQ.
A virtual hand probably materializes and slaps you.
Or how about quotations? Or parenthetical usage (as most online writers are keen to these days). Any symbol usage or numbers even. And for the biggy - international language support. Don't get me wrong. I find this fascinating to the point of "Doh! why didn't I think of that!" and I am really glad these 2 guys will be set for life financially very soon.
Dang. Your IT friend deserves at least a sucker. Wait - no those can be messy when he/she is working on those computer things. A gummy bear would be more fitting. Those have no spine either.
Ps. For the humor impaired, this was/is sarcasm. On multiple levels. Reading comprehension is FUN!
"For the love of money is the root of all evil."
-Quote from a somewhat popular book
It would be reasonable to say that a significant percentage of people involved in the game industry do it for the love of being part of the game creation process. Programmers, QA personnel, and managers put in crazy hours to fulfill their personal dream of inspiring somebody else with their game. Once they get a great game that sells well, all of them are on top of their game (pardon the pun). Their eyes start filling with visions of being able to live the good life and being able to do what they love. Time passes and more great selling games get made and these people are rightfully feeling like gods of their own domains.
Enter the investors and business people. Their sole purpose is to make money. They do not care how it is made, what widgets are used to make people shell out money for said widgets, only that the widgets generate the maximum amount of profit given the amount of resources used to make said widget. A very significant percentage of business people are only interested in the game of making money, nearly everything else is secondary. Specialized (and sometimes even general) knowledge of those widgets is not necessary at all.
In the case of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick is on public record stating these very things. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/activisions-bobby-kotick-brings-cash-but-not-heart.ars When he talks, he isn't talking to the consumer, he is talking to the investors - although I do believe those type of people delude themselves into thinking they are talking to the consumer base. The investors are the most important people you need to make happy to be able to make those large sums of money. By now, the consumer base is so large that a few missteps in execution will be absorbed by the sheer number of consumers. Just as long as the quarterly balance sheet is an improvement over same quarter last year all is well in the money making world.
Meanwhile, the people who have sweat blood and guts getting the company to where it is are dismayed at the change of direction the company is taking. They like the extra money and the even better benefits because the families they have now demand such things. They internally file this under mid-life crisis and buy a big toy for themselves to sooth the ego bruised dream of making a difference in the world through their passion. By now, the patterns of malcontent from the consumers and the many compromises in game design is way too frequent to ignore. The more brilliant people of the core team that made the company great have seen the writing on the wall and have already formed new opportunities for themselves (exit strategies), while the ones not so confident are basically biding their time and polishing their resumes. It is no longer a joy to leap out of bed ready to attack the day with finishing up whatever game related task you may have. You go into work dreading whatever the new edict comes down from upper management. Your life has reached The Dilbert Level(tm). Congratulations.
Eventually, the game company spends of all the consumer good will that was accumulated during the glory days. Even the "sheep" consumers are leaving because there are better games out there. The investors spit up the company and sell the pieces and leave with their bags bulging with money while the soon employed ones are left wondering what the hell happened.
I just hope that Diablo 3 has enough of it's roots in the pre Activision days to be a good game. I already know that it will be the last ActiBlizzard game that I might purchase.
I don't have an MBA or run a successful business, but I have noticed something. There is a certain point of revenue making that a company goes through that nearly requires them to change the business model in some form (thereby screwing over the existing customer base). Perhaps this is due to the government mandate that all businesses must return a profit. Hence all the short term profit seeking. I think Activision/Blizzard has reached this point. Or from my viewpoint, Activision is doing this. Blizzard knows it has the formula on making great games* and has seemingly never been worried about taking all the time necessary to make a wonderful and highly anticipated product.
*It could be argued that the secret sauce left with Bill Roper and gang.
Enter Activision. For the most part, it seems as though they have kept their promise that they won't mess with the creative process that Blizzard has for making games. What Activision is doing, is systematically trying to find alternate revenue streams to exploit the success of the Blizzard games. Battle.Net 2.0, the dumbing down http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down of World of Warcraft, WoW influence on Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 loss of LAN play, and Real ID. These are the ones that the public knows of. Every once in a while, Activision trots out some talking head about how they are gong to change the gaming market or explain to the customer base why a certain 'feature' is a good thing for everybody concerned (read: we think this will make our share holders the most money and were told to do this).
All in the name of making even more money. Countless companies have gone though this: Id Software, Ubisoft, Bioware, there are too many to list. Valve seems to be immune to this effect and I bet it is because they are privately owned. I personally think capitalism is a great thing but at what point is it detrimental?
- or -
I could be talking out my ass and should be ignored.:)
It's not known well, but temperature and altitude affect the clarity just as much, if not more, than the cable construction methods. The colder it is the less jitter is introduced in the signal path as the molecules are not moving around so much. Closer to sea level, the predictability of the air pressure reduces the effects of signal variance. Which you can hear if your listening space is 10 degrees Celsius or cooler.
All Best Buy audio employees know this but are bound to secrecy by Monster Cable. Probably for marketing reasons.
Hearing 5 minutes of tonal variations of sine waves (assumed since I could only take 3 minutes of it) is just plain annoying.
Now if it had been the temporal overlapping of many different frequencies of tuning forks, that would be at least more interesting as it would take some skill during the performance.
I am having a different experience. On my MacBook Pro (purchased 2 months ago), WoW plays great at 1920x1200. I consistently runs at 70-80 fps. Only when I increase the rendering distance to maximum does it slow down to 30 fps. I didn't do anything special to the options either. I just downloaded the burning crusades client and it figured out all the best settings for the graphics card (8600M GT).
You know, I had a long and eloquent response to this and when I went to post it got lost in the Internet ether. I am not typing it again.
1) This guy does have a right to say what he wants with a couple restrictions. Read up on the Bill of Rights and keep up on current events. Then, if applicable, vote in the next election for somebody who supports your ideal of how to deal with P2P traffic. It is cloaked somewhat in the net neutrality issue as well. 2) In almost any society, and especially America's, the golden rule applies here. "Those who have the gold make the rules." Main stream media is a slave to this rule. But it happens in other areas too. Again, if these things matter to you, vote for change if you can.
Actually, your voice does matter even if you don't use the right channels.
Public opinion does matter, just not as much. Especially in the context you and the GP seem to be soapboxing on. Criminal activity, and thus opinion in some cases, does matter. That particular bent can effect change by getting somebody else do to the political work for you. Usually to the criminal's derision. As long as we are talking about the law, let's talk about those persons that are above it. Their opinion matters very much. So much so that it upsets the very foundations on which our country was built.
And need I remind you that our country was founded by people who _didn't_ go through the proper channels. They got so fed up with the old guard (sometimes not even a figure of speech) that they left. Took their little balls and bats and just freaking left and founded another nation. I mean, if they had just left comments and pleaded with those in power they could of effected change. Cowards!
Enough sarcasm for you? This country is run by big businesses, special interest groups, and those who have absolutely no interest in changing anything that will affect their political positions. And to top it all off, now the entertainment industry is using their influence over the apathetic (which they helped create) to make changes beneficial to them.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't anybody else besides Kaspersky discovering these things? On the one hand, it is in their best interest to find out as much as they can about this new kind of virus. On the other hand, I get a bit nervous when there appears to be only 1 source for information.
There are downloader addons that account for this asinine behavior and will follow the links until the link being saved has a image extension to it. Or for the really obtuse sites that deliberately mess up content types, you can create a rule to force the content to an image type.
Not that I have ever done this or anything......*whistles*
If it's something embedded, they'll have it behind layers of security.
I take umbrage at this statement. It is never wise to assume anything when it comes to security. And if you've been following the articles related to SCADA systems and industrial security that have been popping up lately, it is obvious that the industrial controls market somehow thinks that *their* systems will never get a virus anyway. With the latest crop of SCADA software touting Cloud Storage/Control and Mobile Access as the latest and greatest _must have_ features, security will be more of a concern than ever.
My opinion here, but anybody that wants cloud control for industrial systems should be hung by their balls and hit in the head with a shovel. It's a stupid idea and fraught with problems. Cloud data storage - not so bad, but still a gateway for countless future problems.
My take on it is there is a significant percentage of younger folks who don't have the drive and the work ethic that they did back then. Not entirely accurate, since people trained in highly skilled professions tend to take their jobs quite seriously and work just as hard (if not harder) than older generations.
But that's my own view. Who the hell knows what he was referring to.
". Nearly every one of these people are accidents waiting to happen. I"
that would be nice if that statement was actually based on something.
Funny I thought the rest of the paragraph was a series of statements why I think that way. I must of been imagining it. Good thing I wasn't driving!
Sorry to say I don't have time, money or resources to get a study done to test the anecdotal stories of incidents like these so a critical thinker such as yourself could refute it with a slight of objectivity.
I agree with the spirit of the recommendation, but not the way it is suggested.
FACT: People are distracted to varying degrees while performing normal driving.
There are countless reasons why the driver of a car can be distracted in the normal operation of a vehicle: serious conversation with a passenger, yelling at the unruly spawn in the backseat, fishing around in the glove compartment, windshield is dirty and driving during dusk when the sun is shining directly in your eyes, etc etc.
FACT: Personal electronics are an additional distraction while driving.
If I'm using my phone GPS capability while actively navigating an unfamiliar area downtown in a huge city, any point I take my eyes off the road is an opportunity to be in an accident. Best case scenario: The GPS device is completely hands off. Fortunately, my upgraded smartphone has this. Answering a phone is very distracting. You have to find it or fish it out of your pants pocket, look at the device to unlock it, and press the button to answer it. Then talking on the phone is distracting. Some conversations more than others of course. It would be great if a large percentage of people could judge for themselves when they exceed the threshold of not paying attention to the road, but unfortunately, most people are incapable of this judgement call.
Personally, I never answer the phone while driving. If it is important, they'll leave a message and I'll call back later. That's not to suggest everybody should be that way, but I do think a hands off system for answering a call in a car would be best. Instead of a luxury item in a car, I think every car made should have a hands off system the easily integrates with the car sound system. A technical nightmare right now, but with a few mandates to the right companies, it could be a reality in as little as 5 years.
What I literally hate seeing is people who talk on the phone nearly non stop while driving the car. Nearly every one of these people are accidents waiting to happen. I am sorry, but you cannot concentrate on driving while always talking on a phone. If you have to make a phone call or answer it, make it short and sweet. You'll live longer and you can talk longer when you are not driving. Driving is not an afterthought - no matter how long you have been doing it. It requires varying degrees of concentration. Most of the time driving is boring, but you need the mental capacity to respond quickly to bad conditions.
In a my perfect world, talking on the phone while driving would be punishable the same way as driving while under the influence. Ergo, the cop sees you talking on the phone, they get an opportunity to pull you over / ticket you and you get to explain your case to the judge or pay the fine. Repeated infractions get stiffer and stiffer fines until at some point you get your license taken away from you.
For those that absolutely have to talk while driving, get a hands off system for your vehicle.
Siri needing a constant network location to work does make sense. Quite a large subset of questions Siri is going to field will be location based in some fashion. Humans use their location to infer information about conclusions, there isn't a reason why Siri can't do the same. Especially given the limited ways Siri can 'sense' it's environment. I certainly agree that not reading back answers to some queries is of limited usefulness. Being at beta level software I can give it a pass for that. Basically, I want it to be at a level where I can ask it a non-congruous question (think Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit), it locates the information quickly, then parses the information and reads back the relevant portion.
Siri needing a constant network location to work does make sense. Quite a large subset of questions Siri is going to field will be location based in some fashion. Humans use their location to infer information about conclusions, there isn't a reason why Siri can't do the same. Especially given the limited ways Siri can 'sense' it's environment. I certainly agree that not reading back answers to some queries is of limited usefulness. Being at beta level software I can give it a pass for that. Basically, I want it to be at a level where I can ask it a non-congruous question (think Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit), it locates the information quickly, then parses the information and reads back the relevant portion.
This is common knowledge for damn near everybody on Slashdot, but for those who don't know:
It's not the browser cookie that is tracking the browser activities, it is the Facebook included javascript that recognizes the fb cookie and reports that this particular browser has visited this website/page. The cookie is only data on the user's machine and that is used to log where that browser has gone to. That's why these social sites (and porn sites, etc.) are so insidious. You may think that no longer visiting them is enough but it isn't. A good practice is to clean out your cookies once a month, and anything you don't immediately recognize, delete. Most users won't take the time to do that, There was an extension that changed the cookie lifespan to 1 month but I can't seem to find that now. Another good thing to do is run the addon NoScript. Again, for most users they will quickly tire of approving scripts repeatedly. The last thing that is good to do is to add an entry into your hosts file that points facebook.com to 127.0.0.1. There, never having to worry about facebook insecurities again, without being too paranoid.
Make it an audience participation movie. A few members of the audience, random chosen and willing or even an auction, will be issued an arcade light gun (ala Duck Hunt) and at certain points in the movie will need to shoot the aliens on the screen. Simple infrared light sensors behind the screen will trigger the different projectors upstairs to show either a successful or a failure scene ending. Gimmicky? Yes. Worse than the current 3D craze? Eh, make the movie a decent parody on it's own source material, and I'd go see it at least twice to see how it was different based on successful shooting(s) or not. That's twice more than I'm seeing 3D stuff these days.
*stands up tentatively*
"Hi, my name is Mike and I'm a disenfranchised video gamer."
[rest of room, which is packed] "Hi Mike."
I've played my share of FPS and deathmatch multiplayer. It was super fun at the time, but I was never good enough to be competitive at it. The general attitude of the players now is not something I want to associate with. I only want to have fun, they seem to want to lock horns and piss in each other's faces to establish some kind of online social order of dominance. The third person ensemble piece games (Mass Effect, Dragon's Age) are fun, but I've exhausted nearly everything novel out of them. Minecraft enjoyed a big mind share for a while, and I'll likely return to that quite often like an old friend, but it doesn't capture my attention much anymore. Popcap games are fun for a 30 minute diversion, but have no holding power.
The one genre I really REALLY enjoyed, the Splinter Cell series, was killed by their masters and the overzealous DRM releases. Sigh. I've tried to pick up and enjoy Metal Gear Solid games, but it just isn't the same. What I need to do is get really drunk and try again, wipe the brain pan of any coherent memories of Splinter Cell to give Metal a solid shake (double pun intended).
I'll play Mass Effect 3 when it comes out and I have really low expectations, so I'm hoping to be surprised there. Diablo 3 looks too much like an isometric version of World of Warcraft for me to get excited about it anymore, that and Battle.net isn't my idea of a good thing at all. Games used to be about connecting gamers together to play games. Now everything has to be "social" while I broadcast my gaming habits to the world. That and Mr. Bobby Kotick pisses me off just on principle.
"Shit," I say with sudden realization, "I finally grew up."
*sits down*
Sadly, that's the way the news works these days, it's not news unless it's sensational news. Well reasoned and accurate statements are cold and boring, who the hell wants to read that? Urmm...personally, I do and I know a lot of people that do. People with the ability to think critically. Which unfortunately is a minority everywhere. Hence, no place is immune from the sensational headlines being needed to garner page hits. *sigh*
I followed and read the path of links all the way to the core announcement and along the way I heard mention of a switch in the firmware that could be modified that prevents the PS3 from phoning home. If true, that would definitely be something that I'd be interested in doing. Given the recent security breach, I never want to have the PS3 connect to PSN again. I only play single player games, so I don't even have a need for PSN other than DLC (which I hate and refuse to buy) and game updates (it won't be long before those are available offline through the PS3 underground scene).
Plus at this time in my life, I have enough time to start considering rewriting the basic interface that the PS3 uses. It'd also be nice to be able to use a modern version of opera and a few other utilities.
The real news is the last paragraph of the article:
"Van de Burgwal also discovered that his multi-processor chip would work well for digital radio reception on smartphones, due to its low energy use. The technology is being further developed by U Twente spin-off company Recore Systems."
There is more money to be had from a general purpose antenna receiver in smartphones. At the very minimum, faster ROI which is what will drive the faster development/implementation into the consumer market.
What the article doesn't say is just as interesting. I'd be more interested in signal loss ratios and other engineering things. Maybe the dishes are better at what they do than what this chip can do. Still, it's nice to see promising research like this that will drive further research projects.
http://apple.com/store. Choose the macbook. Add all the internal upgrades (RAM, HDD). And it's not even close to $1,500. Not to mention as a teacher (and with her daughter being a student) they'd be entitled to a fairly big discount, at least 15% when I bought mine.
But, if I add AppleCare, a *very* common thing for non computer people to do, it is 1498 USD. Take off %15 for educational discount, add roughly 10% for s&h and the price is still very close to 1500 USD.
So sdfgsdhgehaveadgsrgh I!
I wonder what happens when you want to type garbage or inane abbreviations: e.g. lol omgwtfbbq brb afk QQ.
A virtual hand probably materializes and slaps you.
Or how about quotations? Or parenthetical usage (as most online writers are keen to these days). Any symbol usage or numbers even. And for the biggy - international language support. Don't get me wrong. I find this fascinating to the point of "Doh! why didn't I think of that!" and I am really glad these 2 guys will be set for life financially very soon.
Dang. Your IT friend deserves at least a sucker. Wait - no those can be messy when he/she is working on those computer things. A gummy bear would be more fitting. Those have no spine either.
Ps. For the humor impaired, this was/is sarcasm. On multiple levels. Reading comprehension is FUN!
"For the love of money is the root of all evil."
-Quote from a somewhat popular book
It would be reasonable to say that a significant percentage of people involved in the game industry do it for the love of being part of the game creation process. Programmers, QA personnel, and managers put in crazy hours to fulfill their personal dream of inspiring somebody else with their game. Once they get a great game that sells well, all of them are on top of their game (pardon the pun). Their eyes start filling with visions of being able to live the good life and being able to do what they love. Time passes and more great selling games get made and these people are rightfully feeling like gods of their own domains.
Enter the investors and business people. Their sole purpose is to make money. They do not care how it is made, what widgets are used to make people shell out money for said widgets, only that the widgets generate the maximum amount of profit given the amount of resources used to make said widget. A very significant percentage of business people are only interested in the game of making money, nearly everything else is secondary. Specialized (and sometimes even general) knowledge of those widgets is not necessary at all.
In the case of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick is on public record stating these very things. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/activisions-bobby-kotick-brings-cash-but-not-heart.ars When he talks, he isn't talking to the consumer, he is talking to the investors - although I do believe those type of people delude themselves into thinking they are talking to the consumer base. The investors are the most important people you need to make happy to be able to make those large sums of money. By now, the consumer base is so large that a few missteps in execution will be absorbed by the sheer number of consumers. Just as long as the quarterly balance sheet is an improvement over same quarter last year all is well in the money making world.
Meanwhile, the people who have sweat blood and guts getting the company to where it is are dismayed at the change of direction the company is taking. They like the extra money and the even better benefits because the families they have now demand such things. They internally file this under mid-life crisis and buy a big toy for themselves to sooth the ego bruised dream of making a difference in the world through their passion. By now, the patterns of malcontent from the consumers and the many compromises in game design is way too frequent to ignore. The more brilliant people of the core team that made the company great have seen the writing on the wall and have already formed new opportunities for themselves (exit strategies), while the ones not so confident are basically biding their time and polishing their resumes. It is no longer a joy to leap out of bed ready to attack the day with finishing up whatever game related task you may have. You go into work dreading whatever the new edict comes down from upper management. Your life has reached The Dilbert Level(tm). Congratulations.
Eventually, the game company spends of all the consumer good will that was accumulated during the glory days. Even the "sheep" consumers are leaving because there are better games out there. The investors spit up the company and sell the pieces and leave with their bags bulging with money while the soon employed ones are left wondering what the hell happened.
I just hope that Diablo 3 has enough of it's roots in the pre Activision days to be a good game. I already know that it will be the last ActiBlizzard game that I might purchase.
but I envision Nagahashi Mirimoto (the head of the miniaturization dept), screaming at the top of his lungs:
"THE PITS! MAKE THEM SMALLER!!" :)
Dang those guys are so good at making everything smaller.
I don't have an MBA or run a successful business, but I have noticed something. There is a certain point of revenue making that a company goes through that nearly requires them to change the business model in some form (thereby screwing over the existing customer base). Perhaps this is due to the government mandate that all businesses must return a profit. Hence all the short term profit seeking. I think Activision/Blizzard has reached this point. Or from my viewpoint, Activision is doing this. Blizzard knows it has the formula on making great games* and has seemingly never been worried about taking all the time necessary to make a wonderful and highly anticipated product.
*It could be argued that the secret sauce left with Bill Roper and gang.
Enter Activision. For the most part, it seems as though they have kept their promise that they won't mess with the creative process that Blizzard has for making games. What Activision is doing, is systematically trying to find alternate revenue streams to exploit the success of the Blizzard games. Battle.Net 2.0, the dumbing down http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down of World of Warcraft, WoW influence on Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 loss of LAN play, and Real ID. These are the ones that the public knows of. Every once in a while, Activision trots out some talking head about how they are gong to change the gaming market or explain to the customer base why a certain 'feature' is a good thing for everybody concerned (read: we think this will make our share holders the most money and were told to do this).
All in the name of making even more money. Countless companies have gone though this: Id Software, Ubisoft, Bioware, there are too many to list. Valve seems to be immune to this effect and I bet it is because they are privately owned. I personally think capitalism is a great thing but at what point is it detrimental?
- or -
I could be talking out my ass and should be ignored. :)
It's not known well, but temperature and altitude affect the clarity just as much, if not more, than the cable construction methods. The colder it is the less jitter is introduced in the signal path as the molecules are not moving around so much. Closer to sea level, the predictability of the air pressure reduces the effects of signal variance. Which you can hear if your listening space is 10 degrees Celsius or cooler.
All Best Buy audio employees know this but are bound to secrecy by Monster Cable. Probably for marketing reasons.
Hearing 5 minutes of tonal variations of sine waves (assumed since I could only take 3 minutes of it) is just plain annoying.
Now if it had been the temporal overlapping of many different frequencies of tuning forks, that would be at least more interesting as it would take some skill during the performance.
I am having a different experience. On my MacBook Pro (purchased 2 months ago), WoW plays great at 1920x1200. I consistently runs at 70-80 fps. Only when I increase the rendering distance to maximum does it slow down to 30 fps. I didn't do anything special to the options either. I just downloaded the burning crusades client and it figured out all the best settings for the graphics card (8600M GT).
You know, I had a long and eloquent response to this and when I went to post it got lost in the Internet ether. I am not typing it again.
1) This guy does have a right to say what he wants with a couple restrictions. Read up on the Bill of Rights and keep up on current events. Then, if applicable, vote in the next election for somebody who supports your ideal of how to deal with P2P traffic. It is cloaked somewhat in the net neutrality issue as well.
2) In almost any society, and especially America's, the golden rule applies here. "Those who have the gold make the rules." Main stream media is a slave to this rule. But it happens in other areas too. Again, if these things matter to you, vote for change if you can.
-Mike
You should add this to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_line#Sounding_technique
Actually, your voice does matter even if you don't use the right channels.
Public opinion does matter, just not as much. Especially in the context you and the GP seem to be soapboxing on. Criminal activity, and thus opinion in some cases, does matter. That particular bent can effect change by getting somebody else do to the political work for you. Usually to the criminal's derision. As long as we are talking about the law, let's talk about those persons that are above it. Their opinion matters very much. So much so that it upsets the very foundations on which our country was built.
And need I remind you that our country was founded by people who _didn't_ go through the proper channels. They got so fed up with the old guard (sometimes not even a figure of speech) that they left. Took their little balls and bats and just freaking left and founded another nation. I mean, if they had just left comments and pleaded with those in power they could of effected change. Cowards!
Enough sarcasm for you? This country is run by big businesses, special interest groups, and those who have absolutely no interest in changing anything that will affect their political positions. And to top it all off, now the entertainment industry is using their influence over the apathetic (which they helped create) to make changes beneficial to them.
Who wants to secede?