The dropouts who are highly successful are very much the exception rather than the rule. Generally the pattern is their good fortune is overwhelmingly obvious before they drop out. Meanwhile, thousands more drop-out thinking they are going to make it rich and end up going no where for the rest of their career. This is not an endorsement of the intrinsic value of the education, but the reality of a *lot* of companies that make a 4 year degree a requirement before they'll even forward your resume to the department looking for a candidate. In my case, I interviewed during college for what was advertised as full-time summer, part-time rest of the year position. The employer made it obvious that I would have to drop out of college to prove I was dedicated to them to be considered for hire. I declined and now make 3 times the salary they offered (they offered low by real-world standards, even if it seemed a little high relative to intern level positions).
In this particular case, they are expected to drop over a one-time commitment of only $100k? In VC terms, that is nothing at all, you can't start anything with that. The cases I know of personally start in the millions, and generally people who have degrees and experience allowing them to pick their career back up if everything goes bust. In salary terms for a 'grunt' job, that may amount to little more than 1 years pay of the job you agree to lock yourself out of to pursue your idea. If he were *really* committed to a person's idea being valuable, he wouldn't care what their education was and he would put more than $100k into it.
The fact that he specifically targets people in university with the condition of dropping out seems almost vindictive to the institution. If he things things are broken with the system, screwing over the majority if not all of 20 students is not a good approach to inciting positive change.
The problem is not the specific examples given per se, the problem is advocating carriers using pricing as a punitive measure against specific arbitrary data they don't like due to anti-competitive desire rather than direct reasons.
If I check facebook 10 times a day or slashdot 10 times a day, the carriers costs are the same. There is no sane reason for them to change extra for facebook, and in fact makes it more expensive for them (tracking details like that is more work than ignoring) and complicated for the consumer. It gets a lot of coverage and at a glance sounds neat to gouge the buzz of the day, but when you sit down there really is no solid reason to single out facebook rather than just pricing the throughput the way you want across the board.
Now, on to a more likely scenario. Let's presume I get internet through Comcast. Comcast institutes a premium on Netflix, Hulu, and youtube traffic. The motivation is clear, to offset losses/preserve their margins on cable TV by making 'free' services less attractive. As a dumb pipe, they don't pay any of that up to the content providers, just pocket it, with no good reason for the price penalty.
Now one thing that kept this in check was that telco companies didn't have this conflict of interest (they were mere carriers, not content providers/brokers). However, more and more mobile and residential internet carriers are also getting in on the content provider game causing an uncomfortable convergence on a model with inherent conflicts of interest with regards to net neutrality. Verizon has their vCast stuff (As Verizon relented into the real smartphone era with fewer locked features, I thought this would die off, but they are still chasing it), Sprint has SprintTV, and AT&T U-Verse includes cable tv content, to name a few.
A lot of posts fixate on the windows client. However, they work on Roku, PS3, Wii, and a number of other platforms that are almost certainly not Silverlight and many of which use Linux under the covers.
What you just said isn't particularly reasonably done.
All client implementations are closed-source binaries without open source requirements. Even on their clients atop linux, their platform is not open nor derived from code requiring it to be open (presumably). Of course, one wonders why not take those various clients and let the community play with it standalone, even if not open source (like huludesktop, for example).
All their open-source stuff is basically in their datacenters. They exploit open-source so they are self-sufficient as needed and can find a pool of ready-to-go developers to fill gaps. They are not beholden to MS, IBM, Oracle, or anyone for infrastructure. For any endeavor of the scale of Netflix, in-house developers centered on open-source starting points just makes sense.
If you are proposing making a netflix competitor, it's not about the infrastructure, but the content licensed to be served up by that infrastructure. The infrastructure is not impossible, but dealing with the content licensing..
They only prove when a site is ridiculously underpowered or trivially exploitable. For all the success they've had trolling local news pieces to portray them as scary, unstoppable hackers, they are a bunch of random people with time to browse the web for all sorts of details on random people and be script kiddies.
Then this will be pretty thoroughly uneventful. I easily beat it without looking at the internet at all. It managed to get answers very severely wrong. It did manage to hit a couple of the before and after which it seemed to have a particularly hard time with.
However, this config makes no mention of GPUs, so it's probably moot. If you are saying they may upgrade these later, I would be surprised if they are using systems with enough space to accommodate GPUs if not doing it up front. Most of these configurations, regardless of vendor, go to half the CPU density to make room (space, power, cooling wise) for gpus. When dealing with a scale of 14k cpus, you generally pick the config up front and don't bother going back for piece-wise upgrades.
The only way to tell if a config is thinking about GPUs 'down the line' is if they go ahead and put the parts in. Going x86 by itself isn't enough to give any sort of playground for GPGPU computing, you must have decent GPUs to even begin.
Many don't care about the architecture because all their work is not hard to redo per-architecture. Those will jump on Itanium, POWER, Sparc, or whatever architecture the vendor has that hits the sweet spot. You can tell those as their top500 entries from year to year frequently jump architectures. These are also customers most amenable to jumping on the GPU bandwagon, despite the fact they are more painful to program for and require particular care and feeding to avoid becoming memory bottlenecked.
Many others don't have the luxury. In this case I suspect x86 was simply a hard requirement. Also note the lack of mention for GPUs. If going for the cheapest way to get to some petaflop number, this isn't going to be it. This is clearly based on requirements involving a consistent development environment (it also happens to be the most fungible set of vendors, since swapping between AMD and Intel CPUs is trivial whereas AMD and nVidia are currently not in practice for GPGPU).
Number 9 on the current list is a Blue Gene in Germany, so it seems IBM has plenty of BlueGene type talent in Germany, but they'll take money from customers on the terms the customer dictates even if they can't sell BlueGene or POWER7.
Actually, they're pretty good at predicting broad trends.
The problem with this and the market compared to random or natural phenomenon is that an accepted, accurate model changes things to make the model invalid. In this example, if the model is shown to be accurate predictor, is well published, then the organizers unconsciously making the current pattern will change their behavior if they are about to do something a model is going to predict. Similarly in the economic market, accurate models drive behavior changes that heavily distort the market. Simple fact is this is an attempt to mathematically model human behavior, which will fall flat as the human's committing the behavior will be highly motivated to alter the behavior as soon as someone critical in the situation believes in the model.
And the 'house' doesn't really 'bet' on the table so much as accurately understand the odds and make sure the payoff never is higher than the odds should suggest. This is not sophisticated modeling predicting where to put any money, just basic understanding of the odds.
The simply truth is that he doesn't give a rat's ass what makes a good game, he just cares what makes an unambiguously profitable game. Not only do they want to turn a profit, they seem obsessed with having zero theoretical piracy. Even if they make twice as much money one one game vs. another, if that profitable game also had as much piracy as sales (or unknowable piracy rates), they think that's a failure and that every instance of piracy is 60 bucks lost they could've gotten. They think if they hadn't released that profitable game, then every one of those sales would have converted to the other game *and* all those pirated copies would've translated into sales. So instead of 3x sales with two games, they could have had 5x sales with one game.
Any amount of rational, objective thinking would recognize the faults, but all the intellectual property companies seem to suffer from this fallacy.
single-player games you have to actually put more work in so the player *doesn't* feel alone
That's not what slows those down. Plenty of single player games have been completely created in the time period your examples have spent not coming about.
Besides, there's a difference in the player experience. In a multiplayer game, you easily feel not alone, but in a single player game, the game generally aims to put you in the shoes of someone particularly special, like saving the world, major hero, etc. You play through HL2 and all the NPCs keep saying 'Freeman!', essentially worshiping you as you uniquely go on your job to free the world (well, other NPCs are also fighting, but it's obvious you are uniquely responsible). MMORPGs sometimes try to do that with quests, but everyone gets to do those quests and suspension of disbelief is just too demanding. When there is literally a line of heroes to fight the 'ultimate' boss respawns, it's hard to ignore.
Single player games represent deeper, involved stories as well as a different sort of escapist experience. I hate multiplayer games because they are either pick up and go with no development possible or I have to develop in the context of other gamers who have no life. Also, they tend to become work. People say 'let's meet up at 8:00pm' to do some gaming (either a quest or just random playing). Suddenly you have hard set obligations and other people count on you and you make people mad if you don't play on time, or right. Then you have to deal with politics of people having arguments and crap like that getting in the way of your gaming experience. I have enough of that in my day-to-day life, I want some away time from that. I just want to pick up something as I can play it, and play it without regard for it just growing all the annoyances I put up in real life.
I think this is a perfect example of how things have gone south in the world.
Programmers are thought of as near unskilled labor, with 'architects' and 'engineers' that *don't* code inserted as a layer between programmers and management.
It's just not a job that can be subdivided that well. Programming languages and libraries are designed to let humans describe what to do as easily as possible *directly*. Once you have sufficiently described the function of code to be written, you might as well have written it yourself.
Look at it like a building - Sure, I can have this great "idea" that I want to build this monumental skyscraper, 100 stories tall... "and all I need is some welders and people to pour concrete". I wouldn't want to go anywhere near *that* building! You need a good architect(s)/engineers who understand how to build a building, stress calculations, wind forces, etc, long before you go anywhere near "building" it.
I would argue that an engineer and architect is a viable analogy for software, but the people who know nothing more than how much concrete to poor or other similar small-scale detail compare more to the compilers/linkers/interpreters in programming than any human role.
The 'to the cloud' commercials annoy me. But the one in particular where the traveling couple gets delayed and RDPs to their specific home computer and watches a local recording remotely goes to show how the 'cloud' word is completely meaningless.
Ranks down there with the AT&T commercial that says 'the original name for the internet was the world wide web'. ARRGGHHHH.
Most of these people with 'great idea', but *just* need a programmer (i.e. people who have obviously never talked to a developer about their idea and obviously know next to nothing about the nuts and bolts of how things work) have ideas that are terrible, impossible, and/or uselessly vague (many cases of do 'something' with the 'cloud').
If a developer acts as a production line worker, they will frequently turn out irrelevant product. It's one thing to read the specs handed down by someone who knows what they want and write strictly to the requirements listed, it is another thing entirely to really internalize the need and apply your advanced knowledge of what is possible to deliver a perfect fit above and beyond the specific requests. People will prescribe awkward workflows due to perceived technology limitations and/or steer clear of very sensible features they presume impossible.
Clear delineation between developer and 'idea' people just doesn't make much sense except in the most straightforward cases, and none of those straightforward 'ideas' are valuable (mostly one-off customized solutions of common setups required to work with a customers uniquely evolved system).
You really need both a solid idea and a developer who is more than just an assembly line worker to get good results of significant value.
expensive, error-prone device to eliminate a tiny percentage of accidents
I think the tech is only expensive currently because the automakers consider it a luxury feature and apply high markup. For contrast, you can go to a toy store and buy a barbie with a sufficient camera and admittedly somewhat too small screen for 40 dollars retail.
Also, those tiny percentage of accidents have a high share of pedestrians. Since pedestrians are not particularly well protected, this is a more fatal type of accident.
You don't get them by opening email or surfing the web these days.
Not true for 'average' computer users. I think many are dubious of email, but if a web site offers an installer package available via a button that says 'your system requires a critical flash update' or 'we have detected a virus, click here to install a removal program', you bet way too many people click and trust.
With a modern desktop OS, the chances of infection via remote exploit is generally low by virtue of not generally listening on any port by default, at least not beyond link-local scope. MS *at least* learned that lesson. Most all exploits enter a network via trojaned email, web site, or removable storage.
So if you do have a regimented small home network, and you are careful about not doing *anything* via unsolicited dialog boxes, you have a good shot of running. I have anti-virus on systems and haven't had a single hit in years.
Meanwhile, I have relatives that see 'an urgent update for flash is needed' window, click without question, and end up rapidly with a mess of a setup real quick (with or without anti-virus, the anti-virus was surprisingly oblivious despite correctly updating definitions). I think the vast majority of users fall into this bucket.
Simple rule for Windows systems I give to less savvy friends and family: If it doesn't show up in the system tray, assume it's a browser window and therefore not to be trusted. If you really think flash needs an update, close the dialog and go to adobe's site directly, just like you would call your bank rather than blindly reply to an email.
Unless you are talking about locking down outbound connections, I fail to see how a NAT gateway would allow any unsolicited connections to things behind it.
In terms of itself, it would be a problem if they either didn't filter their own packets or at least refrain from most services/specifically bind to internal-facing addresses, but I'd hope they wouldn't be silly about it.
If I'm about to spend enough that I'll care if it goes south and find an apparent bargain, I may give weight to early results, but I'll also search on the companies names, look for reviews, and see if the BBB has any complaints.
Of course, the downside is that reviews are going to have a negative tendency if at all possible. When things go ok, people aren't motivated to say anything. When things go bad, they will step up. This is one reason I look hard for comments associated with bad reviews to see if it is something unreasonable or legitimate being complained about.
In this case, the text would point to completely unacceptable behavior that would kill the sell. Other times, I'll see people complain due to their own mistake (e.g. rating a video card down for not having DB-15, which is self-evident from product pictures).
Sometimes a distro will muck with init setup so that prompts for root password.
However, there's a good chance init=/bin/sh will work (depending on initrd contents).
Booting a rescue image is probably the most bullet-proof way to do it, unless the root fs is encrypted in which case you're screwed unless you had a password that can be dictionary cracked.
Yes, but most were based on fictional ships already detailed in movies. Sure, a fair share didn't exist, but it's unlikely that adding a third 'wing' to a TIE fighter can look that different from the tie fighters presented in the movies, for example.
One aspect of low tech level of a game is that the player fills out some of the details with their imagination, and in a way, viewed the game in a customized way that suits their tastes.
When a remake comes along, things will change. Presume that the original creative staff is involved and does the remake even without changing their minds about any existing details. They will still flesh out the material according to their original vision, bringing out details that may not work well with how your imagination filled in the blanks. It could be cosmetic, where conversion from 2D sprite or low-detail, untextured model to high-detail textured 3D model didn't present what you'd expect. It could be voice-actor work reading the original script completely not matching what you thought the character would sound like. It could even be entirely different dialog, as the developers didn't have time to write more content or didn't have the room, or it was written in a foreign language and different translations would be used.
There are exceptions of course. X-Wing/TIE-Fighter represent a sufficiently detailed universe that it would take a lot of screwing around to create a remake that would disagree with players' previous experience. Some games had detailed cut scenes laying out pretty well how things should look, and these could probably do an ok job with a remake.
Slashdot Mirror
The dropouts who are highly successful are very much the exception rather than the rule. Generally the pattern is their good fortune is overwhelmingly obvious before they drop out. Meanwhile, thousands more drop-out thinking they are going to make it rich and end up going no where for the rest of their career. This is not an endorsement of the intrinsic value of the education, but the reality of a *lot* of companies that make a 4 year degree a requirement before they'll even forward your resume to the department looking for a candidate. In my case, I interviewed during college for what was advertised as full-time summer, part-time rest of the year position. The employer made it obvious that I would have to drop out of college to prove I was dedicated to them to be considered for hire. I declined and now make 3 times the salary they offered (they offered low by real-world standards, even if it seemed a little high relative to intern level positions).
In this particular case, they are expected to drop over a one-time commitment of only $100k? In VC terms, that is nothing at all, you can't start anything with that. The cases I know of personally start in the millions, and generally people who have degrees and experience allowing them to pick their career back up if everything goes bust. In salary terms for a 'grunt' job, that may amount to little more than 1 years pay of the job you agree to lock yourself out of to pursue your idea. If he were *really* committed to a person's idea being valuable, he wouldn't care what their education was and he would put more than $100k into it.
The fact that he specifically targets people in university with the condition of dropping out seems almost vindictive to the institution. If he things things are broken with the system, screwing over the majority if not all of 20 students is not a good approach to inciting positive change.
The problem is not the specific examples given per se, the problem is advocating carriers using pricing as a punitive measure against specific arbitrary data they don't like due to anti-competitive desire rather than direct reasons.
If I check facebook 10 times a day or slashdot 10 times a day, the carriers costs are the same. There is no sane reason for them to change extra for facebook, and in fact makes it more expensive for them (tracking details like that is more work than ignoring) and complicated for the consumer. It gets a lot of coverage and at a glance sounds neat to gouge the buzz of the day, but when you sit down there really is no solid reason to single out facebook rather than just pricing the throughput the way you want across the board.
Now, on to a more likely scenario. Let's presume I get internet through Comcast. Comcast institutes a premium on Netflix, Hulu, and youtube traffic. The motivation is clear, to offset losses/preserve their margins on cable TV by making 'free' services less attractive. As a dumb pipe, they don't pay any of that up to the content providers, just pocket it, with no good reason for the price penalty.
Now one thing that kept this in check was that telco companies didn't have this conflict of interest (they were mere carriers, not content providers/brokers). However, more and more mobile and residential internet carriers are also getting in on the content provider game causing an uncomfortable convergence on a model with inherent conflicts of interest with regards to net neutrality. Verizon has their vCast stuff (As Verizon relented into the real smartphone era with fewer locked features, I thought this would die off, but they are still chasing it), Sprint has SprintTV, and AT&T U-Verse includes cable tv content, to name a few.
A lot of posts fixate on the windows client. However, they work on Roku, PS3, Wii, and a number of other platforms that are almost certainly not Silverlight and many of which use Linux under the covers.
What you just said isn't particularly reasonably done.
All client implementations are closed-source binaries without open source requirements. Even on their clients atop linux, their platform is not open nor derived from code requiring it to be open (presumably). Of course, one wonders why not take those various clients and let the community play with it standalone, even if not open source (like huludesktop, for example).
All their open-source stuff is basically in their datacenters. They exploit open-source so they are self-sufficient as needed and can find a pool of ready-to-go developers to fill gaps. They are not beholden to MS, IBM, Oracle, or anyone for infrastructure. For any endeavor of the scale of Netflix, in-house developers centered on open-source starting points just makes sense.
If you are proposing making a netflix competitor, it's not about the infrastructure, but the content licensed to be served up by that infrastructure. The infrastructure is not impossible, but dealing with the content licensing..
They only prove when a site is ridiculously underpowered or trivially exploitable. For all the success they've had trolling local news pieces to portray them as scary, unstoppable hackers, they are a bunch of random people with time to browse the web for all sorts of details on random people and be script kiddies.
Then this will be pretty thoroughly uneventful. I easily beat it without looking at the internet at all. It managed to get answers very severely wrong. It did manage to hit a couple of the before and after which it seemed to have a particularly hard time with.
However, this config makes no mention of GPUs, so it's probably moot. If you are saying they may upgrade these later, I would be surprised if they are using systems with enough space to accommodate GPUs if not doing it up front. Most of these configurations, regardless of vendor, go to half the CPU density to make room (space, power, cooling wise) for gpus. When dealing with a scale of 14k cpus, you generally pick the config up front and don't bother going back for piece-wise upgrades.
The only way to tell if a config is thinking about GPUs 'down the line' is if they go ahead and put the parts in. Going x86 by itself isn't enough to give any sort of playground for GPGPU computing, you must have decent GPUs to even begin.
Many don't care about the architecture because all their work is not hard to redo per-architecture. Those will jump on Itanium, POWER, Sparc, or whatever architecture the vendor has that hits the sweet spot. You can tell those as their top500 entries from year to year frequently jump architectures. These are also customers most amenable to jumping on the GPU bandwagon, despite the fact they are more painful to program for and require particular care and feeding to avoid becoming memory bottlenecked.
Many others don't have the luxury. In this case I suspect x86 was simply a hard requirement. Also note the lack of mention for GPUs. If going for the cheapest way to get to some petaflop number, this isn't going to be it. This is clearly based on requirements involving a consistent development environment (it also happens to be the most fungible set of vendors, since swapping between AMD and Intel CPUs is trivial whereas AMD and nVidia are currently not in practice for GPGPU).
Number 9 on the current list is a Blue Gene in Germany, so it seems IBM has plenty of BlueGene type talent in Germany, but they'll take money from customers on the terms the customer dictates even if they can't sell BlueGene or POWER7.
Actually, they're pretty good at predicting broad trends.
The problem with this and the market compared to random or natural phenomenon is that an accepted, accurate model changes things to make the model invalid. In this example, if the model is shown to be accurate predictor, is well published, then the organizers unconsciously making the current pattern will change their behavior if they are about to do something a model is going to predict. Similarly in the economic market, accurate models drive behavior changes that heavily distort the market. Simple fact is this is an attempt to mathematically model human behavior, which will fall flat as the human's committing the behavior will be highly motivated to alter the behavior as soon as someone critical in the situation believes in the model.
And the 'house' doesn't really 'bet' on the table so much as accurately understand the odds and make sure the payoff never is higher than the odds should suggest. This is not sophisticated modeling predicting where to put any money, just basic understanding of the odds.
The simply truth is that he doesn't give a rat's ass what makes a good game, he just cares what makes an unambiguously profitable game. Not only do they want to turn a profit, they seem obsessed with having zero theoretical piracy. Even if they make twice as much money one one game vs. another, if that profitable game also had as much piracy as sales (or unknowable piracy rates), they think that's a failure and that every instance of piracy is 60 bucks lost they could've gotten. They think if they hadn't released that profitable game, then every one of those sales would have converted to the other game *and* all those pirated copies would've translated into sales. So instead of 3x sales with two games, they could have had 5x sales with one game.
Any amount of rational, objective thinking would recognize the faults, but all the intellectual property companies seem to suffer from this fallacy.
single-player games you have to actually put more work in so the player *doesn't* feel alone
That's not what slows those down. Plenty of single player games have been completely created in the time period your examples have spent not coming about.
Besides, there's a difference in the player experience. In a multiplayer game, you easily feel not alone, but in a single player game, the game generally aims to put you in the shoes of someone particularly special, like saving the world, major hero, etc. You play through HL2 and all the NPCs keep saying 'Freeman!', essentially worshiping you as you uniquely go on your job to free the world (well, other NPCs are also fighting, but it's obvious you are uniquely responsible). MMORPGs sometimes try to do that with quests, but everyone gets to do those quests and suspension of disbelief is just too demanding. When there is literally a line of heroes to fight the 'ultimate' boss respawns, it's hard to ignore.
Single player games represent deeper, involved stories as well as a different sort of escapist experience. I hate multiplayer games because they are either pick up and go with no development possible or I have to develop in the context of other gamers who have no life. Also, they tend to become work. People say 'let's meet up at 8:00pm' to do some gaming (either a quest or just random playing). Suddenly you have hard set obligations and other people count on you and you make people mad if you don't play on time, or right. Then you have to deal with politics of people having arguments and crap like that getting in the way of your gaming experience. I have enough of that in my day-to-day life, I want some away time from that. I just want to pick up something as I can play it, and play it without regard for it just growing all the annoyances I put up in real life.
I think this is a perfect example of how things have gone south in the world.
Programmers are thought of as near unskilled labor, with 'architects' and 'engineers' that *don't* code inserted as a layer between programmers and management.
It's just not a job that can be subdivided that well. Programming languages and libraries are designed to let humans describe what to do as easily as possible *directly*. Once you have sufficiently described the function of code to be written, you might as well have written it yourself.
Look at it like a building - Sure, I can have this great "idea" that I want to build this monumental skyscraper, 100 stories tall... "and all I need is some welders and people to pour concrete". I wouldn't want to go anywhere near *that* building! You need a good architect(s)/engineers who understand how to build a building, stress calculations, wind forces, etc, long before you go anywhere near "building" it.
I would argue that an engineer and architect is a viable analogy for software, but the people who know nothing more than how much concrete to poor or other similar small-scale detail compare more to the compilers/linkers/interpreters in programming than any human role.
The 'to the cloud' commercials annoy me. But the one in particular where the traveling couple gets delayed and RDPs to their specific home computer and watches a local recording remotely goes to show how the 'cloud' word is completely meaningless.
Ranks down there with the AT&T commercial that says 'the original name for the internet was the world wide web'. ARRGGHHHH.
Replace "Oracle's" with "everyone's" and you are there.
Most of these people with 'great idea', but *just* need a programmer (i.e. people who have obviously never talked to a developer about their idea and obviously know next to nothing about the nuts and bolts of how things work) have ideas that are terrible, impossible, and/or uselessly vague (many cases of do 'something' with the 'cloud').
If a developer acts as a production line worker, they will frequently turn out irrelevant product. It's one thing to read the specs handed down by someone who knows what they want and write strictly to the requirements listed, it is another thing entirely to really internalize the need and apply your advanced knowledge of what is possible to deliver a perfect fit above and beyond the specific requests. People will prescribe awkward workflows due to perceived technology limitations and/or steer clear of very sensible features they presume impossible.
Clear delineation between developer and 'idea' people just doesn't make much sense except in the most straightforward cases, and none of those straightforward 'ideas' are valuable (mostly one-off customized solutions of common setups required to work with a customers uniquely evolved system).
You really need both a solid idea and a developer who is more than just an assembly line worker to get good results of significant value.
expensive, error-prone device to eliminate a tiny percentage of accidents
I think the tech is only expensive currently because the automakers consider it a luxury feature and apply high markup. For contrast, you can go to a toy store and buy a barbie with a sufficient camera and admittedly somewhat too small screen for 40 dollars retail.
Also, those tiny percentage of accidents have a high share of pedestrians. Since pedestrians are not particularly well protected, this is a more fatal type of accident.
I don't care if I turn out to be wrong
GASP. You do realize you are on the *internet* and therefore you *can't* be wrong?
You don't get them by opening email or surfing the web these days.
Not true for 'average' computer users. I think many are dubious of email, but if a web site offers an installer package available via a button that says 'your system requires a critical flash update' or 'we have detected a virus, click here to install a removal program', you bet way too many people click and trust.
With a modern desktop OS, the chances of infection via remote exploit is generally low by virtue of not generally listening on any port by default, at least not beyond link-local scope. MS *at least* learned that lesson. Most all exploits enter a network via trojaned email, web site, or removable storage.
So if you do have a regimented small home network, and you are careful about not doing *anything* via unsolicited dialog boxes, you have a good shot of running. I have anti-virus on systems and haven't had a single hit in years.
Meanwhile, I have relatives that see 'an urgent update for flash is needed' window, click without question, and end up rapidly with a mess of a setup real quick (with or without anti-virus, the anti-virus was surprisingly oblivious despite correctly updating definitions). I think the vast majority of users fall into this bucket.
Simple rule for Windows systems I give to less savvy friends and family: If it doesn't show up in the system tray, assume it's a browser window and therefore not to be trusted. If you really think flash needs an update, close the dialog and go to adobe's site directly, just like you would call your bank rather than blindly reply to an email.
Unless you are talking about locking down outbound connections, I fail to see how a NAT gateway would allow any unsolicited connections to things behind it.
In terms of itself, it would be a problem if they either didn't filter their own packets or at least refrain from most services/specifically bind to internal-facing addresses, but I'd hope they wouldn't be silly about it.
If I'm about to spend enough that I'll care if it goes south and find an apparent bargain, I may give weight to early results, but I'll also search on the companies names, look for reviews, and see if the BBB has any complaints.
Of course, the downside is that reviews are going to have a negative tendency if at all possible. When things go ok, people aren't motivated to say anything. When things go bad, they will step up. This is one reason I look hard for comments associated with bad reviews to see if it is something unreasonable or legitimate being complained about.
In this case, the text would point to completely unacceptable behavior that would kill the sell. Other times, I'll see people complain due to their own mistake (e.g. rating a video card down for not having DB-15, which is self-evident from product pictures).
Sometimes a distro will muck with init setup so that prompts for root password.
However, there's a good chance init=/bin/sh will work (depending on initrd contents).
Booting a rescue image is probably the most bullet-proof way to do it, unless the root fs is encrypted in which case you're screwed unless you had a password that can be dictionary cracked.
Yes, but most were based on fictional ships already detailed in movies. Sure, a fair share didn't exist, but it's unlikely that adding a third 'wing' to a TIE fighter can look that different from the tie fighters presented in the movies, for example.
One aspect of low tech level of a game is that the player fills out some of the details with their imagination, and in a way, viewed the game in a customized way that suits their tastes.
When a remake comes along, things will change. Presume that the original creative staff is involved and does the remake even without changing their minds about any existing details. They will still flesh out the material according to their original vision, bringing out details that may not work well with how your imagination filled in the blanks. It could be cosmetic, where conversion from 2D sprite or low-detail, untextured model to high-detail textured 3D model didn't present what you'd expect. It could be voice-actor work reading the original script completely not matching what you thought the character would sound like. It could even be entirely different dialog, as the developers didn't have time to write more content or didn't have the room, or it was written in a foreign language and different translations would be used.
There are exceptions of course. X-Wing/TIE-Fighter represent a sufficiently detailed universe that it would take a lot of screwing around to create a remake that would disagree with players' previous experience. Some games had detailed cut scenes laying out pretty well how things should look, and these could probably do an ok job with a remake.